


Put the Lonesome on the Shelf

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Cooking, Developing Relationship, Domestic, Drunk Sex, Grinding, Hand Jobs, Living Together, M/M, Masturbation, Mildly Dubious Consent, Multiple Orgasms, Nosebleed, Secret Crush, Sexual Fantasy, Studying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-05-16 21:23:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 54,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14819139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Ukai clears his throat and sticks his hand out, feeling self-conscious in this pretense of adulthood between them. 'Looking forward to living with you, roommate.'" Ukai is a new undergrad looking for a place to live other than the dorms when he meets grad student Takeda. Sharing rent turns out to be the best solution for them both before they find themselves sharing a lot more.





	1. Arrangement

Ukai checks the address of the apartment complex three times before he steps into the parking lot. It’s not like he needs to. He knows where he’s going, he memorized the directions without trying during his double-checking of his route before he got on the bus to make his way to this part of town; but his nerves are climbing higher the closer he gets, until by the time he finds the clean wooden sign printed with the name of the complex he’s looking for he’s convinced he has the day, or time, or address wrong for his appointment. He checks all three in succession, standing on the sidewalk and frowning down at the note he made for himself as if he’s daring the numbers scrawled across it to change even as he looks at them; but they hold as steady as the forward advance of time pushing him closer to his scheduled meeting. Finally Ukai can’t find anything else to worry about getting wrong, and can find no other reason to delay the inevitable meeting; so he pushes a hand through the weight of his bleached-blond hair, and heaves a sigh of resignation, and moves forward into the complex to find the apartment number he’s looking for.

It’s not hard to locate. The complex is small, just a handful of rooms arrayed around one central hallway on a top and a bottom level; with only a half-dozen doors to choose from it’s easy to spot the one labeled with the wrought-iron 2 on the door. It’s on the second floor, up a set of cement steps that Ukai takes with slow consideration. It’ll be harder to get a bed up onto the second floor, he thinks idly, and maneuvering his mattress around the railing to get to the doorway will be a challenge, although the second floor will keep him from being quite as much at the mercy of his neighbors’ waking hours; and then he realizes what he’s doing, and hisses as he shakes his head to shed the preemptive consideration.

“Slow down, Keishin,” he mumbles to himself, ducking his head to speak to his feet as he mounts the last step to the landing where the apartment in question is located. “Worry about meeting the guy before you start thinking about moving in.” He grimaces at his feet, scowling in a mostly-futile effort to clear the embarrassed flush from his cheeks; and then he takes a breath, and lifts his head, and steps forward with determination to rap his knuckles against the door in front of him.

There’s silence for a moment. Ukai’s heart is pounding faster than it has any right to, as if he’s waiting for a judgment rather than just meeting a stranger; then there’s the sound of running footsteps, and a muffled shout, “ _I’ll be right there!”_ that manages to sound flustered even through the weight of the door. Ukai blinks, wondering if he should shout back, if he should offer some kind of reassurance; but there’s no time to think about it before there’s the click of a lock turning over, and the door flies open to reveal the speaker himself.

He’s shorter than Ukai expected. Ukai’s used to standing over people, to looking down in more cases than otherwise, but there was still some part of his mind that heard _grad student_ and had pictured someone visibly older, taller or broader than Ukai himself. But the resident of the apartment stands almost a head shorter than Ukai, and is built along slim lines to match; with his bare feet and lopsided glasses, Ukai would believe they’re far closer to the same age than otherwise.

“I’m so sorry about that,” the other says, lifting a hand to straighten his glasses as he flashes a brilliant smile at Ukai by way of apology. “I wanted to tidy things up a bit before you arrived and I’m afraid time got away from me.”

Ukai shakes his head. “Nah, I’m a little early,” he says. “I’m sorry to have caused you trouble.”

The other laughs and waves a hand to urge this aside. “It’s no trouble at all,” he assures Ukai. “I’ve been putting off cleaning up anyway, you did me a favor in giving me a reason to put my books back where they ought to be.” He blinks up at Ukai, his eyes coming into focus like he’s just processing the other before him, and when he rocks back on his heels it’s to straighten into a more formal posture before he offers another smile only slightly more restrained than his first. “You _are_ Ukai, right?” He reaches out to offer his hand into the space between them. “Takeda Ittetsu. It’s a pleasure to have a face to put to the name.”

Ukai takes the other’s hand on autopilot. “Likewise.” Takeda’s hand is smaller than his, his fingers slender enough to feel delicate in Ukai’s hold, but his grip is certain and unflinching, offering enough strength to leave Ukai blinking shock as Takeda lets his hand go to turn back towards the apartment as he leaves the door open behind him in clear invitation.

“Come inside,” he says, gesturing at the space around them as he looks back over his shoulder to flash that smile at Ukai again. “It’ll only take a few minutes but I can show you around to start, at least.”

Ukai steps into the apartment and reaches to push the door shut behind him. There’s a few pairs of shoes alongside the entrance; he toes his own off with self-conscious care before coming forward in his socks to follow Takeda into the space.

“This is the main room,” Takeda says, sweeping his hand to gesture towards the area around them. “I usually use it as the living room, with the kitchen around the corner” as he points towards a refrigerator and stove set in close proximity to a sink empty of any dishes but a mug with a spoon set upright in it. “That’s the dining table, if you want to make use of it.”

Ukai shrugs. “I usually eat on the couch anyway.”

Takeda’s laugh is as bright as his smile. “Me too,” he says, speaking softly as if he’s sharing a secret. “Or at my desk in my room. I’m glad you don’t stand too much on ceremony, I don’t know how long I’d be able to pretend to do the same.” He turns away from the main space to make for a narrow hallway. “The bathroom is through there, with the sink in front and then the shower and toilet behind another door. It’s a little small but I don’t use much of the storage space so there’s plenty of room for anything you might want to bring. The room in the corner is mine.” Ukai glances towards the open door leading into a space that looks as carefully tidy as the rest of the apartment, from the neatly made sheets over the bed to the pile of notebooks and texts at the corner of a desk with a chair pulled up in front of it. “And then this is the one open for rent.” Takeda takes the lead through another door just a few feet to the right of the one standing open to his room and into a space that looks far larger than the other, if only for the lack of furniture. There’s a bookshelf in one corner and a desk just under the window, though there’s no chair in front of it; other than that the space is entirely empty and clean of even dust, as the light streaming gold through the glass makes clear.

Ukai steps forward into the room to look around. There’s truly not much to see, except for the minimal furniture already present, but it helps to get a sense of scale, to envision where he might fit the one luxury of his overlarge mattress and whether there would still be space enough for a chair in front of the desk at the side. The closet is covered by sliding doors, hanging with more balance than Ukai has seen in some of the other places he’s visited as possible accommodations; he steps forward to push at one as Takeda hovers just shy of the doorway, as careful in coming into the space as if Ukai has made it his just by entering.

“I think I’m pretty easy to live with,” Takeda offers as Ukai tests the slide of the closet door against its rollers. “I’m no chef but I cook most nights, if that’s any inducement. I keep things pretty clean and I don’t have many guests so I wouldn’t be in your way.”

Ukai glances back at Takeda standing in the doorway. His eyes are wide with sincerity, his hands clasped carefully in front of him as if he’s at an interview; the sight makes Ukai’s mouth twist on the threat of a smile in spite of himself. “Really?” he deadpans. “I would have thought you for a party animal, myself.”

Takeda dimples at him. “I’m sorry to disappoint,” he says. “I’m afraid I’m just a typical grad student, too absorbed in my own research to be of any real use to anyone.”

Ukai shrugs. “Splitting the rent is use enough,” he says. “What do you study?”

“Literature,” Takeda says at once. “Japanese literature, specifically. I’m in the midst of investigating the original material of a poet from several centuries ago, when I’m not doing TA work.” He ducks his head barely to the side to offer curiosity over the top of his glasses at Ukai. “What about you? What are you going to major in?”

Ukai clears his throat. “I’m undecided,” he says, trying to sound more stoic than embarrassed and not entirely sure he succeeds. “I started working right out of high school and I’m only just getting around to college.” He shrugs and ducks his head forward, feeling himself hunching on the discomfort that always comes with talking about this subject; he only feels it the more keenly under the bright-eyed stare of the evident scholar in front of him. “Didn’t really want to live out of the dorms with a bunch of teenagers looking after themselves for the first time.”

“Ahh.” There’s none of the judgment Ukai was braced for in Takeda’s reply; the surprise of that alone is enough to bring his gaze back up to meet the relieved smile the other is turning on him. “I was wondering how old you were.”

Ukai raises an eyebrow. “Curious about my grey hair, grandpa?”

“Ah!” Takeda lifts his hands to wave in front of him as he takes a step backwards as if to physically retreat from the growl on Ukai’s voice. “No, no, that’s not at all what I meant, I’m sorry, I--” and it’s at that point that Ukai’s grin gets through to him enough to cut off the flow of his blurted apologies.

“I’m just teasing,” Ukai says. “I turned twenty-one this last April. Not all that far from a teenager myself, I guess, but it feels like a big difference.”

“Oh.” Takeda lets his hands fall to clasp in front of him again. “I can understand that. You have a maturity to you that might make life in the dormitories something of a challenge.”

“As opposed to here,” Ukai says, and flashes the edge of a grin to cut off Takeda’s stammering protests before they begin. “This looks perfect, honestly. And it’ll save me a bunch of money. You sure you’re not undercharging for the room?”

“Really?” Takeda’s eyes go wide; his clasped hands ease to fall heavy to his sides. “No, I’m splitting the rent 50-50. The bedrooms are nearly the same size and since the living areas are shared...is it too much?”

Ukai waves a hand. “Nah,” he says. “That sounds great. I mean,” as a thought flickers through his mind and hunches in his shoulders,  “If you don’t mind having me as your roommate.”

Takeda shakes his head so hard his glasses appear in some danger of sliding right off his nose again. “No, no, not at all! I’d appreciate the company, honestly.”

“And the rent check, I bet,” Ukai grins. “Cool. What do we need to do to make it official?”

“Oh,” Takeda says, and blinks hard. His lashes are dark behind the shine of his glasses; when the sunlight catches his eyes the hazel of them lightens into gold. “Your word is good enough for me. Can you come by on Monday? We can go into the office to add your name to the lease and get you a key.”

“Sounds good.” Ukai only hesitates over moving for a moment; then he steels himself and steps forward over the distance of the room to where Takeda is standing at the doorway. Takeda’s head lifts, his gold-shaded eyes following Ukai’s; Ukai clears his throat and sticks his hand out, feeling self-conscious in this pretense of adulthood between them. “Looking forward to living with you, roommate.”

Takeda’s smile spreads across the whole of his face, curving at his lips and dipping into his cheeks before sparkling bright at his eyes. When he reaches out to take Ukai’s hand it’s with that same certain force he showed at the front door, this time coupled with a half-step forward that brings their shoulders nearly into contact with each other. It’s startling to have someone else so near so suddenly, enough that Ukai might draw back in other circumstances, but Takeda is shaking his hand firmly, and still smiling up at him, and Ukai is too caught in the absolute focus Takeda is turning on him to even think of drawing away, much less wanting to.

“I’m very glad to meet you, Ukai,” Takeda tells him with absolute sincerity on every word. “I think we’ll be a great match.”

Ukai doesn’t know how it is that the other can make a statement of opinion sound so much like a predetermined fact, but it’s reassuring to hear all the same.


	2. Supportive

“I dunno,” Takinoue drawls, his head craned up to consider the flight of stairs stretching in front of them. “Have you considered just sleeping on a futon?”

“Buy a new one,” Shimada suggests. “Then you can have the mattress delivery people worry about getting it up the stairs.”

“No way,” Ukai growls. “That damn mattress is the most expensive thing I own. I’m not giving it up.” He turns away from the stairs to retreat towards Takinoue’s pickup, pulled up close against the curb to allow for the shortest distance between the door to the second-story apartment and the mattress turned diagonally to fit in the bed of the truck. “I’ll push it up the stairs myself while you two are busy being babies about helping me move in.”

“We’re just planning our attack,” Shimada protests as he abandons his consideration of the stairs to follow Ukai out towards the truck. “That’s good strategy. The railing at the top is going to be tricky.”

“I know.” Ukai opens the back of the truck and climbs in so he can shift the dense weight of the mattress to vertical and move around to the far corner of it to push it free of the truck. “Let’s get it upstairs first. I’ll worry about getting it through the door after that’s done.”

“Fair enough,” Shimada says. Ukai sets his feet against the bed of the truck and grabs at the far edge of the mattress to pull with his full strength and heave it into a protesting slide across the metal. Not for the first time he’s grateful for Takinoue’s dedication to a clean car that has kept the bed free of the dirt and leaves that Ukai’s grandfather’s old truck always used to carry with it; he flinches a lot less at the prospect of the edge of his mattress sliding over the metal as a result.

“Hang on,” Shimada shouts from the end. “The balance is shifting, go slow.” Ukai halts obediently; Takinoue jogs over to join Shimada in catching the end of the mattress and bracing it upright against the force of Ukai’s shove. Ukai waits until they’re ready and looking up at him in anticipation of his motion before he moves again, slower this time, to ease the mattress out over the midpoint and let its weight fall into Shimada and Takinoue’s waiting hold.

That’s the easy part. Getting the mattress up into the truck had been as easily thought as done, with the help of Ukai’s grandfather and a few minutes’ break that his parents took from manning their shop; six pairs of hands made fast work of even the bulky weight, and going down is always an simpler prospect than gaining height. But the mattress is double-wide, heavy and unwieldy with its own mass, until just keeping the light end upright is a precarious task for Ukai perched at the end of the truck bed. Shimada and Takinoue have the other end of it steady between them, at least, the weight apparently stable with the both of them working together, but Ukai doesn’t even want to lift his head to look at the angled flight of stairs that they will have to get the weight up.

“Alright,” he sighs, and jumps down from the end of the truck so he can get his feet on the ground and steady his grip against the far end of the mattress. “Ready?” Takinoue nods on behalf of both of the other two and Ukai tightens his hold and pulls to lift his end of the mattress and drag it out of the truck at one and the same time.

It’s hard to maintain his grip. The fabric is slippery and provides no natural handholds, and Ukai’s fingers are already aching from the effort he’s put into carrying boxes packed full of books and clothes. His arms strain with the weight, his fingernails catch hard against the mattress until he thinks he’s going to tear right through it; but he’s keeping it clear of the ground, if only by an inch, and when Shimada and Takinoue start to move Ukai follows their lead without protesting. He backs up a handful of steps, turning the mattress around the corner to make space for the other two to swing wide and into the hallway of the apartment complex; it’s only as Ukai starts to take a step forward that he realizes he’s left himself at the bottom end of the mattress to bear the extra weight of it alone as they maneuver up the stairs. He hesitates for a moment, wondering if it won’t be easier to handle it alone and leave Shimada and Takinoue to deal with the navigation of being at the top; and then Shimada moves onto the first step behind him, and Takinoue steps in sync with him, and Ukai can feel his whole body tremor with the panic-stricken weakness of imminent collapse.

“Wait!” he shouts, more loudly than he intended, but there’s no chance to modulate his voice. His grip gives way, the mattress falls sharply; Ukai barely gets his foot out of the way to keep the blunt weight from crushing down against the toe of his boot. He grimaces and lets his grip ease for a moment, just so he can shake his hands out, while from above him Shimada leans sideways to peer down at him.

“You okay?” he calls. “Sorry about that.”

Ukai shakes his head. “Fine,” he says, and throws in a thumbs-up for good measure. “I just need to get a better grip before we go up.” He shakes out his hands and considers the mattress before him; but there’s no obvious way to suit actions to words, nothing that promises a stable grip for the climb up the stairs before him. Ukai frowns, wondering if he should ask one of the other two to come down to help him steady the weight while the third deals with balancing the top edge alone; and then, while he’s still weighing the relative merits of asking for help or trying to manage as they are, there’s a voice from almost directly above him.

“Ukai?” Ukai looks up automatically, responding to his name before he recognizes the voice as that of his new roommate. Takeda is standing at the top of the stairs, leaning out over the railing to look down and consider the three of them. “I thought that might be you.”

“You thought right,” Ukai tells him. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Takeda shakes his head. “Not at all,” he says, but he’s looking at the mattress instead of at Ukai, his attention fixing on the obvious problem before him. “Would you care for an extra pair of hands?”

“Ah.” Ukai lifts a hand to ruffle through his hair. “You don’t need to do that. We can manage as we are.”

“I’m sure you can,” Takeda says. “It’ll still be easier with a fourth, right?” He looks down to meet Ukai’s gaze again and beams all across his face. “I’ll be helpful to you, I’m stronger than I look. I’ll just slip some shoes on and I’ll be right down.” And he vanishes from over the railing as he retreats back towards the front door of the apartment above.

“That the grad student?” Takinoue asks.

Ukai leans forward to press his forehead to the edge of the mattress and sighs. “Yeah.”

“It _would_ be easier with another pair of hands,” Shimada points out. “It’s nice of him to offer.”

Ukai shifts his feet and reaches to brace his hold at the edge of the mattress in preparation for another burst of effort. “I don’t want to impose on him,” he mumbles, more to himself than for the other two to hear. It’s just as well that he’s not speaking loudly; he’s barely gotten the words out when there’s the sound of footsteps against the landing overhead, and a moment later Takeda is coming down the stairs with a speed enough to make his descent look more like a controlled fall than deliberately stable footing.

“My apologies,” he offers as he twists sideways to lean out far over the railing and slide past Shimada and Takinoue bracing one end of the mattress. Ukai tips the weight to the side to make more space but Takeda is slipping past it to join him at the bottom of the stairs with as much grace as if he hasn’t noticed the barrier blocking most of the stairwell. He turns back to look up at the mattress angled precariously up the stairs in front of them, his eyes wide as he considers it. “You have a big bed.”

Ukai’s face heats with self-consciousness. “Yeah,” he says, and ducks his head to turn his attention to settling his grip against the fabric pulled smooth over the bottom of the mattress. “I figure I have to save everywhere else, I wanted to at least be comfortable when I’m sleeping.”

Takeda laughs. “I can understand that,” he says, and ducks down to catch his fingers against the bottom edge of the mattress. Ukai grimaces concern at the motion, flinching at the thought of delicate fingers crushed against rough cement by the weight, but Takeda just braces his foot against the ground like he’s steadying himself for motion. “Ready when you are.”

Ukai thinks about protesting. He can handle this with the assistance of his friends, he doesn’t need to make his brand-new roommate work for him when they barely know each other. But Takeda is leaning into the weight, looking as determined as if he intends to run through a brick wall if he has to, and some instinct in Ukai tells him that he’s unlikely to have much luck in dissuading the other now that he’s here. He shakes his head instead, giving vent to his concern in silent uncertainty, and when he braces his grip it’s with every intention of taking as much of the weight off Takeda’s hands as he can.

“Ready,” Ukai calls. “And _lift_.” Shimada and Takinoue pull as one at the other end, Ukai heaves against the fabric clutched in his hands; and the mattress lifts, coming up off the ground with far more ease than it did before. Ukai looks down, startled in spite of Takeda’s claim by the force the other must be exerting to lift the far end of the weight, but Takeda’s head is down, his focus apparently entirely turned onto the effort he’s putting into lifting. Shimada and Takinoue take another step up, pulling the mattress in their wake, and at the other end Ukai and Takeda move forward too, falling into pace with each other as they move to climb the first step. They move up the first half of the staircase to the turn at the landing, their forward progress slow with steady intent and marked out by deliberately even breaths; Ukai is just starting to think they might be able to take the whole stairs at once when he and Takeda reach the edge of the landing. Takeda is taking the lead, lifting his foot to step off the last step and onto the reprieve offered over the turn; and suddenly he’s falling, his balance giving way along with the support of his hold as he trips to sprawl against the cement of the landing. For a moment Ukai is left with the full weight of the mattress in his grip, startling in its abrupt return as it starts to fall free; adrenaline clutches his fingers, and strains in his shoulders, and he heaves up as hard as he can to keep the mattress from falling atop Takeda underneath it. There’s a shout from the other end, Shimada or Takinoue giving voice to concern without the means to do anything to help, and closer:

“Ah!” as Takeda pushes himself sideways to roll onto his back and fetch up hard against the railing of the landing, still on the ground but thankfully out of the way of the mattress. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

Ukai lets the weight in his hands down -- as slowly as he can, even if his arms are shaking with the rush of adrenaline coursing through him -- and leans around the end of the mattress to eye Takeda. “You okay?” Takeda is just sitting up from his sprawl; it’s as he lifts his head to look up in answer to Ukai’s question that Ukai sees the color spilling from his nose and over his upper lip. “Shit, you’re bleeding.”

“What?” Takeda blinks, looking startled by this claim, but Ukai is already abandoning his support of the mattress to Takinoue and Shimada so he can come around the edge of the landing to take a knee alongside Takeda. It’s his nose that’s bleeding crimson over his face; Takeda lifts a hand to touch against the wet just as Ukai comes close enough to reach him. “Oh.”

“Tip your head back,” Ukai tells him. He has nothing to offer to help, he realizes, other than the sweat-damp t-shirt he’s wearing; and then:

“Ukai!” from above, and when Ukai looks up Shimada is holding up a pack of tissues in offer. Ukai extends his hands and Shimada tosses them over the barrier of the mattress to the other two.

“Thanks,” Ukai says, but he’s looking to the tissues rather than at Shimada, his thoughts already on the problem at hand. He pulls one free and offers it to Takeda, who takes it with a smile bright enough to be clear even behind the barrier of his hand pressing to stem the flow of blood from his nose.

“Thank you,” Takeda says, and replaces the ineffective attempts of his fingers with the tissue as he tips his head back and up to the light. “Perhaps I should have mentioned that I’m somewhat clumsy.”

Ukai snorts. “That’s become clear,” he says. “You okay?”

Takeda nods so aggressively Ukai nearly reaches out to hold him still just to keep his nosebleed from worsening. “I just caught my sandal on the step,” he says. “It was my mistake, I’m sorry for the trouble.”

“You’re the one who’s bleeding,” Ukai tells him. “Do you want to go back inside?”

A headshake. “No,” Takeda says, and pulls the tissue away as he tips his head forward again. Ukai grimaces protest but there’s no ensuing flow of blood beyond what has already soaked into the tissue; Takeda wipes against his face once more before crumpling the tissue into his pocket. “Let’s get you moved in first!”

Ukai sighs. “Fine,” he says, and gets to his feet. When he offers his hand to Takeda the other takes it without hesitating in letting himself be drawn up onto his feet. “I’m taking the bottom this time though.”

Takeda huffs a laugh. “I can hardly argue with that,” he says, and comes in to brace his hands against the top edge of the mattress. Ukai waits until the other is settled before he leans down to catch his grip around the bottom edge of the weight and steady himself in expectation of lifting; at his side Takeda shifts a foot to give him more space to move. “Ready?”

“Yeah,” Ukai says. “Lift” and he lifts the end of the mattress off the ground in one smooth motion along with the action of the other three. His shoulder presses hard against Takeda’s side as the weight of the mattress forces him to the right to keep it balanced, but Takeda doesn’t protest or flinch away; he just angles his elbow down into a better hold and keeps pulling at the cloth under his hands to keep the mattress steady as Takinoue and Shimada start to back up the second set of stairs with their end of the burden.

They make it to the front of the apartment without further mishap, from Takeda or anyone else; when they stop in front of the doorway for another breather Takeda ducks past them and inside to rinse his face. The other three are left outside the open door to the apartment, listening to the sound of the faucet running in the bathroom and with the pleasant heat of exertion humming through their muscles.

“I like him,” Takinoue says finally, speaking abruptly as if it’s been an open question hanging in the air. “He’s nice.”

“He did just help us carry this thing up the stairs,” Shimada points out. “I think I’d like just about anyone who did that.” Ukai huffs a laugh to match Takinoue; they’re still grinning when Takeda reemerges, his face rinsed clean of any evidence of his fall. He smiles to see them laughing, apparently happy to share in the enthusiasm even without knowing the cause, and he returns at once to his position alongside Ukai.

“Shall we bring it inside?” he asks, tipping his head to direct the question to Ukai. There’s no trace of strain in his voice or in his expression; his gaze is open, as cheerful and ready to help as he looked leaning over the railing a few minutes before. “It’s just a little farther now.”

Ukai meets Takeda’s gaze for a moment, looking down over his few inches of greater height into the gold of the other’s eyes; and then he ducks his head forward and leans in around the edge of the mattress to hide his expression as he clears his throat.

“Yeah,” he says, and reaches to brace his grip around the bottom edge of the mattress. “Let’s get me moved in.”

He’ll think about the shading of hazel in his new roommate’s bright eyes later. Right now he has more pressing concerns to occupy him, and he’s beginning to think he’ll be better taking this one step at a time for his own good if nothing else.


	3. Acquaintance

Ukai breaks in the shower after he gets his mattress settled in his room. He has a double handful of boxes to unpack, stacked haphazardly on top of each other and over the flat surface provided by the desk Takeda already had in the mostly-empty room; he’ll need to find the one with his sheets and blankets before he can sleep on anything other than the bare mattress pushed up hard against the far wall where he and the other three had managed to maneuver it during their last big push to finish the moving process. But he can’t face the prospect of digging through the tight-packed details of his life just at the moment, and his shirt is sticking to his back with the layer of sweat he’s picked up over the course of the day, and he decides taking a shower is the best thing to do, for himself as well as on behalf of the near-stranger he is now living with. He borrows a towel rather than trying to fish his own free from a box, and shuts himself up in the bathroom to stand under the spray of the water with his eyes shut and try to will himself into some sense of home in a space still as foreign as an unknown city.

He doesn’t have a change of clothes easily available, he realizes as he’s standing on the bathmat and rumpling the worst of the water out of his hair. He didn’t think of it coming into the bathroom, but now that his body is washed clean of the evidence of his physical exertion the idea of putting his sweat-damp t-shirt and pants back on makes him cringe just to think of it. He wraps the towel around his hips instead, and cracks open the door to let some of the steam out and gauge Takeda’s location at one and the same time. The bedrooms are both close to the bathroom hallway, Ukai’s unlikely to manage to slip past unseen if Takeda’s in his room: but there’s the sound of the other’s voice speaking softly from the other corner, in the space dominated by the few appliances that make up the kitchen, and that means Ukai can duck out of the bathroom and across the hallway to his bedroom without offering a lot more of himself by way of greeting to his roommate than he thinks Takeda would appreciate.

He makes for the pile of boxes once he’s safely in his room with the door latched shut behind him. His labeling began with the best of intentions and faded into haphazard scribbles by the last few boxes, but he had folded and stacked most of his clothes in one of the first he packed, and that makes locating them far easier than it might be. Ukai peels the tape off the top of the container and lays the flaps open to see what he can easily lay hands to. He has a pile of t-shirts to choose from, one of which he grabs at random; his jeans are farther down, but there’s a pair of pajama pants stuffed along one edge that will at least serve to keep him decent for the evening. Ukai trades the damp towel for the pants, and tugs on his clean shirt over his air-dried shoulders, and when he heads back for the door to return the towel to its rightful place he feels better already, as if the simple addition of clothing serves as a kind of armor for the disoriented vulnerability hanging around him like a fog.

The bathroom has mostly aired out by the time Ukai gets back into it to hang the towel alongside the neat folds of its neighbor. His hair is still damp but he doesn’t try to dry it more than enough to keep water from dripping off the ends and onto his shoulders; he just pushes the weight back off his face with a headband and leaves it as it is instead of bothering with anything more stylish for the few hours he has left before he collapses into bed. He lingers in front of the mirror for a minute, thinking about tracking down the box with his bedding and feeling the prospect weight against him like a physical presence; and then there’s the sound of a knock at the front door, so clear that it pulls all Ukai’s attention around in answer. He comes out of the bathroom, thinking to answer if Takeda is still on his phone call; but the door is coming open before Ukai has rounded the corner, and by the time he’s stepping into the living room he can hear Takeda speaking to offer a bright “Thank you!” in response to the far softer speech of whoever is at the door. Ukai pauses at the turn to the hallway, curiosity and politeness warring to keep him in place, and then Takeda takes a step back from the doorway, turning with careful intent as he balances a pair of pizza boxes in his hands, and Ukai takes a step forward while the other is still trying to adjust the pizza one-handed so he can shut the door.

“I’ll get it,” Ukai says as he comes forward to urge the door shut. Takeda looks up from his efforts to flash that glowing smile at him.

“Thank you,” he says, a little more softly but with just as much sincerity as what he offered to the delivery boy. “Did you have a pleasant shower?”

Ukai nods. “Moving isn’t the cleanest activity,” he says. “Hopefully I’m a little less gross now than I was before.”

Takeda huffs a laugh. “You were fine before,” he tells Ukai as he moves past him to set the boxes down against the edge of the table before the couch. “You do look more comfortable now, though.” Ukai can feel his face heat with a flicker of self-consciousness for the weight of his pajama pants around his hips and the loose fall of his shirt over his shoulders, but Takeda is looking down and doesn’t see the tension of embarrassment settle into the other’s stance. “Do you care for pizza?”

“What?” Ukai is still caught in the midst of his own self-consciousness; it takes him a moment to even make sense of Takeda’s question at all. “Sure, yeah, I love pizza.”

Takeda beams up at him. “I was hoping you’d say that,” he says, and he opens up the topmost of the boxes. Steam rises from the pizza inside and Ukai’s mouth promptly begins to water. “I’ll get us some plates. Do you want a drink? I have some soda in the fridge or I could make you a cup of tea if you’d like.”

“Soda’s fine,” Ukai says on autopilot. It’s not until Takeda is getting to his feet to go towards the kitchen that he catches up with the implication enough to pull his attention away from the temptation of the open pizza box and up to look after Takeda instead. “Wait, you got this for _me_?”

“Yes,” Takeda says. He’s up on his tiptoes and reaching into one of the cabinets over the sink; Ukai can hear the rattle of glasses clinking against each other. “I thought you would likely be hungry after your efforts. Pizza seemed like a safe bet for something you’d like.” He emerges from the cabinet and pushes the door shut before looking back over his shoulder to smile at Ukai. “I’m glad to know that gamble paid off.”

Ukai sits down against the edge of the couch, his self-consciousness forgotten in the face of grateful surprise. “You didn’t have to do that, you know.”

“Of course,” Takeda says as he goes to the fridge to retrieve the soda and fill both waiting glasses. “I wanted to get us off on the right foot at the start, and food seemed like a good way to get on friendly terms.” He returns the soda to the fridge and brings the glasses out to the living room; Ukai accepts them without protest to set down on opposite ends of the coffee table. “And I wanted to celebrate getting a roommate myself. You really have relieved a great deal of my concern regarding finances this quarter. Thanks seemed to be in order.”

“You’re welcome, I guess.” Ukai watches Takeda return to the kitchen for plates; if he knew where anything was he’d offer to help, but between the ache in his knees and his unfamiliarity with his present location it seems best to stay still. Takeda comes back at once, holding out a plate for Ukai before he settles himself on the other end of the couch with his own and reaches for his glass of soda.

“To roommates,” he says, lifting the glass to gesture over the space between them as he flashes a smile at Ukai. “May we never drive each other up the walls.”

“Or out of them,” Ukai says. Takeda laughs and Ukai clinks his glass against the edge of the other’s, pausing to take a sip before he leans forward and reaches out to pull a pair of slices onto his plate.

A companionable silence falls over them. Ukai supposes he should still feel self-conscious; he’s sitting in his pajamas next to someone he hardly knows, after all, no part of that situation has changed from when he first came out of his bedroom. But Takeda is focused on his meal rather than on Ukai, and the other’s friendly cheer is so overt that Ukai can’t find it in himself to hold onto embarrassment when his whole body is aching with the exhaustion of the day. It’s easier to let himself relax into the give of the couch, and enjoy the taste of the pizza and the cool of the soda, and let himself drift into the comfort of something that feels far closer to friendship than his and Takeda’s exceedingly brief acquaintance yet calls for.

The first half of the pizza vanishes almost at once, while Ukai is still in the first unthinking wave of hunger that hit him with the rising cloud of appetizing steam. They both slow after that, easing into something a little more reasonable and a little less ravenous, but the first box is still empty within a half hour, and Ukai doesn’t consider stopping until he’s a pair of slices into the second. He feels warm, clean and comfortable and tired in a way that feels satisfying instead of pained, until by the time he’s finishing his last slice and setting his plate down he doesn’t feel anything like the desire to hide in his room he expected to have. Takeda still has his plate on his lap, where he’s toying with what remains of the crust of one of his slices, but he looks up when Ukai leans back into the support of the couch to offer a smile as friendly as any that went before. Ukai smiles back, willing to offer warmth in answer to the other’s, and then he shifts his weight and clears his throat to make an attempt at extraversion enough to match Takeda’s efforts.

“So,” he says, feeling awkward but pushing through anyway. “Japanese literature, huh?”

Takeda’s smile dimples at his cheek before he ducks his head and lifts a hand to push at his glasses. “That’s right.”

“You’ve been studying that all this time?” Ukai asks. “That’s, what, six years?”

Takeda nods. “I’m just starting my third year now.”

Ukai raises his eyebrows. “That’s an awful long time to be studying the same thing.”

Takeda huffs a laugh and ducks his head. “I’m rather persistent when I set my sights on something,” he says. “It’s my one saving grace. I’m afraid I lack much in the way of any other natural talents.”

Ukai shrugs. “I’m with you on that,” he says. “I’m nothing but mediocre across the board in school and sports and work.”

“Don’t say that,” Takeda tells him. “I’d be willing to bet you have some untapped talent you just haven’t found yet.”

“You’d lose that bet,” Ukai says. “And couldn’t the same thing be said about you?”

Takeda tips his head into a nod of surrender. “A fair point, I suppose.”

They lapse back into silence for a moment. Ukai can feel the effort of the day settling into his shoulders and legs, can feel the necessity of sleep building in the back of his thoughts; but he still has to unpack his sheets and blankets, and right now lingering in easy conversation is far more appealing than going to the effort of emptying another one of his moving boxes. He leans back against the couch, tipping himself into greater comfort as he clears his throat to reach for a new conversation topic.

“You rented this apartment yourself to begin with, right?” Takeda nods in answer; Ukai only glances at him to gain this confirmation before he turns his attention to the glass in his hand and the trickle of condensation working its way down the side towards his thumb. “Why’d you get a two-bedroom place if you needed a roommate? Did you have someone who bailed on you or something?”

Takeda blinks. “Ah,” he says. “No, nothing like that.” He leans in over his knees and reaches out for his own glass to sip at the edge of it. “I actually was originally planning on staying here on my own. Prices aren’t much cheaper for one bedroom than for two, as it turns out, and I signed the lease shortly after getting the list of the classes I would be working as a TA for.” He sets the glass back down on the table and straightens to lift a hand and urge his glasses up his nose again. They’re a little too big, Ukai thinks; or maybe it’s just Takeda’s enthusiastic reactions that keep tipping them off-center or sliding the weight down the bridge of his nose. “Unfortunately one of the professors I was scheduled to work with accepted a grant a month ago to do research overseas. All her classes were upper-division electives, and most were cancelled rather than reassigned to another professor.” Takeda lifts his shoulder in a shrug. “My teaching stipend decreased accordingly, and it became clear it would be much easier to budget with the addition of someone else to split rent and utilities.”

“That sucks,” Ukai says. “Sorry to interrupt your solo retreat.”

Takeda laughs and shakes his head. “Not at all. I’ve been concerned about making the rent payments for the last weeks, it’s more of a relief than anything else to have you here. And I believe I will do the better for having company beyond my own thoughts.”

“I can do that much,” Ukai tells him. “I’ll probably be happier with someone to come home to anyway.” It’s only as he hears the words that he realizes the unintentional weight they carry and feels himself flush crimson with sudden self-consciousness. He looks down at the glass in his hands, fixing his gaze on the beads of condensation and willing himself back to coolness before the color across his cheeks compounds his embarrassment. “Sorry, that came out wrong.”

“Ah!” Takeda says. “No, no, it’s fine.” He clears his throat with tension audible on the sound; when Ukai glances through his hair Takeda has his head ducked forward too and his cheeks coloring to pink of his own as he clasps his hands together in his lap. “I share the sentiment.” He glances up at Ukai, still looking flushed at the cheeks and catching his lower lip in his teeth, but his smile is warm all the same, and there’s no retreat at all in the open friendliness in his hazel-gold eyes. “I’m very happy to have found someone like you to live with.”

Ukai could protest this. They barely know each other, for all that Takeda helped him move in and has now provided him with a much-appreciated meal; the idea of the other having any idea of what Ukai is like seems like a stretch at best and absurdity at most. But Takeda is gazing at him with that complete attention he’s turned on Ukai every time they’ve spoken, watching the other’s face like he’s reading the details of Ukai’s very soul from the lines of his expression, and all Ukai can really manage to do is duck his head in a futile attempt to hide the color in his cheeks and push to his feet in a rush.

“I should go unpack before bed,” he says. He downs the last of his drink and clears his throat before looking at the half-empty pizza box before him. “Do you want to wrap this up?”

“Ah, no, that’s fine.” Takeda gets to his feet at once, following Ukai’s lead with as much speed as if he fears doing some offense by staying seated. “There should be space for it in the fridge just in the box.”

“‘Kay.” Ukai pushes the lid of the box shut and picks it up off the table; as he straightens Takeda takes hold of the bottom of his empty glass to draw it out of his hand.

“I’ll take care of the dishes,” he says, smiling up at Ukai. “You must be nearly ready for bed after the day you’ve had.”

“I can help,” Ukai offers, but Takeda is shaking his head as he collects the plates and moves towards the sink.

“There’s hardly any to do anyway,” he says. “I can tidy up and have everything done by the time you’re done unpacking.”

Ukai still hesitates. “You sure?”

“Absolutely.” Takeda glances back over his shoulder to beam at Ukai. “Tonight’s my treat.”

Ukai heaves a sigh of resignation and shrugs. “Fine,” he says, and picks up the empty box to leave the table clear. “I’ll take dish duty tomorrow then.”

“You have yourself a deal,” Takeda tells him. Ukai puts the half-full box in the fridge and dumps the empty one in the trash; Takeda is shutting off the faucet by the time he turns around so he can set the dishes to dry. Ukai hesitates again, feeling caught somewhere between a stranger and a guest; and then Takeda glances back to smile at him again and lift a hand to wave.

“Goodnight, Ukai,” he offers. “I hope you sleep well.”

Ukai clears his throat. “Yeah,” he says. “You too.” And he takes the opportunity to stride out of the kitchen and retreat behind the shut door of his room.

It takes him some time to unpack his sheets and make his bed, but even once it’s done his heart is still beating somewhat faster than it should. Ukai’s not at all sure he’ll be able to sleep even if he tries; but physical exhaustion wins out over the glow of self-consciousness, and whatever thoughts he has of gold eyes and bright smiles melt from reality into dreams with seamless ease.


	4. Equanimity

Ukai’s classes aren’t as hard as he was afraid they’d be. He’s heard horror stories from those acquaintances he had that went on to university right out of high school: essays a dozen pages long, all-nighters before midterms, incoherent professors and absent TAs and endless textbook chapters. Maybe all that is still waiting in Ukai’s future, in the next months or years of his time studying, but at least for now the lower division classes he’s taking are demanding far less of his time than the pair of part-time jobs he had been working to build up his savings before school began.

He’s glad of the free time. He’s been happy to be working the last few years, both for the structure his jobs gave to his day and for the ever-increasing number in his savings account like a countdown for the day when he could start applying for acceptance at colleges, but he hadn’t realized how little he had to himself until he finds hours of time to occupy by his owns means stretching before him every evening. He could get in touch with Takinoue, or Shimada, or even make plans to visit his parents or ask his grandfather over to visit; but for the first few weeks Ukai is glad of the freedom to do nothing more strenuous than lie across the couch in the living room and play a video game or watch TV through the span of his evenings.

He has the apartment to himself much of the time. Takeda is quiet, tending to keep to his room even when he’s around, and if Ukai’s classes are straightforward Takeda’s seem to fill all the hours of his day with lectures or research or the courses he’s meant to oversee. Takeda is always in the middle of something when Ukai sees him after the first day he moves in, either lost in the pages of some text in front of him or tugging on his shoes to catch the bus to campus or bent over the kitchen table chewing on his lip while he grades the homework for the undergrad classes he assists for. Ukai worries about interrupting him for the first few days and spends his afternoons slipping through the door as quietly as he can and hiding in his room; but it shortly becomes clear that Takeda is hardly aware of anything around him at all when he’s engrossed in a particular thought, and as Ukai’s comfort increases so does his presence, until he thinks nothing of clattering through the kitchen making dinner or a cup of tea while Takeda is shuffling through papers and underlining sentences with red ink at the kitchen table.

If anything, Ukai thinks, the distraction is tending in the other direction. Takeda is fully capable of keeping his attention on whatever it is he’s meant to be doing, regardless of what Ukai is working on; but Ukai finds his thoughts utterly scattered whenever Takeda comes into a room, and his focus resists his control until he manages to turn around and do his utmost to outright forget the other’s presence. Sometimes that works, when he’s engrossed in an episode on TV or struggling over a chapter in a textbook; other times he stares at the book in front of him without so much as seeing the words on the page for his peripheral attention to the hunch of Takeda’s shoulders, and the shift of his fingers bracing at a page, and the set of his teeth against his lower lip.

It’s a bad idea to have a crush on his roommate. Ukai is more than aware of this fact; if he had spent any time at all thinking over Takeda’s original offer, he thinks he might have refused on those grounds alone. But however sensible his retrospective consideration is he knows he would have accepted all the same, would have told himself he could handle it, that he could keep the flicker of heat at the back of his thoughts whenever Takeda is in the room under control; or would have perhaps even considered it an advantage, more than anything else. There’s no reason he has to do anything about it, after all, no need for Takeda to ever come into the knowledge that could strain the seams of their carefully friendly relationship; so Ukai keeps his head down, and no more than glances when he wants to stare, and if he knows every detail of the way Takeda’s hair curls over the frames of his glasses and at the back of his shirt collars, that is his own well-hidden business.

Ukai’s on his own this afternoon anyway. His classes finish just before the lunch hour on Thursdays, and only two weeks into the quarter it’s still early to start studying for midterms. He has one of his textbooks out in the living room and is flipping through it idly, with more vague curiosity than focused intent; it’s comfortable just to be sprawling across the cushions with a cup of tea in easy reach and the span of the afternoon and evening stretching open before him. His boxes are unpacked at last -- after a week of procrastinating Ukai spent an hour last night forcing himself to finish -- and the relief of completing the last task hanging over his head is leaving him languid with satisfaction for at least the moment.

The latch of the door shifting warns Ukai of impending company before it comes open. There’s the sound of a key at the undone lock first, a metallic click as the latch tries to turn over, and Ukai sits up from the couch to call “It’s open,” for the new arrival. There’s a pause, and the rattle of the doorknob, and then the door comes open and Takeda steps in out of the sunlight, a bag heavy-laden with books over his shoulder and his hair tousled to curl all across his forehead and over the tops of his ears.

“Thank you,” he says, smiling at Ukai as he steps into the apartment and looks back to free his lock from the door before pushing it shut. “I’m not used to checking to see if you’re home yet.”

“Sure.” Ukai ought to look back to his book, if only to pretend to be occupied by the dry definitions and theory before him, but Takeda’s head is ducked down as he toes his shoes off at the door, and for a moment Ukai loses track of his careful restraint in watching the other’s movement. Takeda braces a hand at the door as he moves, a precaution, Ukai thinks, to keep him from tripping as he has proven himself more than capable of managing even standing still; it’s only after he’s safely removed his shoes that he slides his bag off his shoulder to set on the floor so he can strip the soft green of his track jacket off his shoulders. He’s dressed far more informally than he sometimes is: Ukai suspects it to be a function of whether the other is teaching or attending class whether he’s wearing a dress shirt and tie or not, and today appears to be one of the latter cases, judging from the t-shirt that he proves to be wearing as he turns to hang his jacket by the door. The fabric is thinner than what Ukai has seen before, it clings close to Takeda’s shoulders as he moves and hugs against the narrow dip of his waist; the idle, unwatched part of Ukai’s thoughts wonders if it’s even fully opaque, considers the way the cloth would stick to skin if it were wet, the way it would leave all the details of Takeda’s chest and angular shoulderblades clear to see. Ukai pictures it for a moment, with clarity too immediate and vivid to be rapidly stifled; and then Takeda turns back around to glance at him, and Ukai has to duck his head over his textbook without consideration of how rude his abrupt retreat may appear.

Takeda doesn’t appear to notice. “I’m sorry if I interrupted your studying,” he says, sounding entirely sincere.

Ukai shakes his head without looking up. “You didn’t,” he says. “I wouldn’t be out here in the living room at all if I minded.”

Ukai can hear the relief on Takeda’s exhale without looking up to see the smile that must go along with it. “I’m glad,” he says, and turns to pick up his bag again. Ukai glances up to watch the movement with as neutral an expression as he can manage, but Takeda’s attention is turned on his bag in any case as he flips open the top to look through the contents in pursuit of something. “I don’t wish to make a nuisance of myself.”

Ukai snorts a laugh. “You do live here too,” he points out. “It’s not like it’s my apartment alone.”

Takeda looks back to beam at Ukai. “I suppose so,” he allows. “I just want to be a good roommate to you.”

“You are,” Ukai says, and that’s the most he can manage before he has to duck his head and fix his attention on the page in front of him instead of meeting Takeda’s unsuspicious gaze. He clears his throat and reaches to turn the page without seeing any of the text before him at all. “You’re the best.”

“Ah,” Takeda says, sounding breathlessly warm. “That’s very kind of you to say. Thank you, Ukai.”

Ukai nods without looking up. “Yeah. Of course.”

Takeda hesitates for another moment. Ukai can feel the other’s attention lingering on him, can almost hear Takeda’s intention to speak forming in the air; but he can’t let himself look up, and in the end his ducked-head silence is enough to stifle whatever Takeda might have thought to offer. He slips through the living room instead, moving quietly as if concerned about disturbing Ukai in spite of the other’s reassurances; he’s just turning the corner to the hallway leading to the bedrooms when Ukai lifts his head and clears his throat roughly.

“Takeda,” he calls, aiming the words for the other’s retreating shoulders; but Takeda is turning at once, pivoting almost before Ukai finishes speaking as if he were waiting for the call.

“Yes,” he says, sounding breathless again. “What is it?”

“I just--” Ukai starts; and then he has to pause to take a breath and force himself into at least the illusion of composure. “I can make dinner for us tonight, if you want.”

Takeda blinks at him. “You don’t need to worry about me. I don’t usually start forgetting meals until finals are underway.”

Ukai shakes his head. “I wanted to try making curry,” he explains. “It would be easy to make enough rice for two, I wouldn’t even have to think about it.”

“Oh.” Takeda gazes at Ukai for a moment; then he smiles all at once, the expression breaking wide across the whole of his face. “I’d love to take you up on that offer, then. Thank you very much.”

“Yeah,” Ukai says. “No problem.” He lifts his hand and waves an awkward farewell. “See you for dinner then.”

“Yes.” Takeda is still smiling; his cheeks are flushing too, glowing to pink as he takes a step backwards and lifts his hand to wave in answer. “Sounds good.” He turns to retreat down the hallway, cutting it close enough that his shoulder bumps the wall as he moves, but he just catches his balance and keeps going to pad through the open door of his room. Ukai watches him go, his attention tracking the shift of Takeda’s shoulders and the pattern of his footsteps on the floor; it’s only the sound of the other’s door shutting that jolts him back to himself enough for him to blink, and duck his head, and return his gaze to the page in front of him with far more of a blush across his face than the dry material deserves.

He might be less composed than he’d like to think he is, but Ukai really can’t find it in him to regret his decision.


	5. Proximity

Ukai can see the glow of the kitchen light through the window of the apartment as he comes up the block towards the turn into the complex. The night is velvet-dark, quiet in the settling stillness that comes with the approach of midnight; with the buses long since finished with their last run of the night, Ukai has had nothing but the sound of his footsteps to keep him company over the walk back to the apartment he has been thinking of as _home_ more and more often. He doesn’t mind the walk -- it’s a cool night, with a breeze that catches his hair and eases the heat of the mild exertion of walking even over the distance of the mile he’s been pacing out -- but the illumination seems to glow like a beacon, distinct enough against the dark around him to scatter all the structure of his somewhat-intoxicated inner ramblings into something like concern. Ukai pauses on the sidewalk, going still for a moment to frown up at the window for what is surely his apartment; and then he starts moving again, with somewhat more speed now as he rounds the corner into the complex and takes the stairs to the second floor two at a time.

Ukai’s careful in unlocking the door. There’s no light on in Takeda’s bedroom window, and it’s not out of the realm of possibility that the other just forgot to turn off the kitchen light on his way to bed; but there’s the sound of movement in the kitchen as soon as Ukai gets the door open, the giveaway of that enough to prove Takeda’s presence even before Ukai steps through the open door to see him.

“Takeda?” Ukai asks, speaking softly in consideration of the quiet hall outside as he eases the door shut behind him and turns the lock over. “What are you doing up?”

“Ukai?” Takeda steps forward from the kitchen and to the edge of the space that serves as a living room; he has a white kerchief tied around his hair and a similarly pristine apron covering his clothes, but Ukai can see his bare feet against the linoleum of the kitchen. Takeda smiles wide at him and lifts the hand not holding a spatula in a wave. “Welcome home! I didn’t realize you were still out.”

“I got an invitation to a party,” Ukai says as he pulls his shoes off to leave them by the door before coming forward across the living room. “I thought I’d give it a try, have the whole college experience and all that.”

“Of course,” Takeda says. He turns back towards the kitchen to return to what he’s doing; Ukai picks his way across the living room with careful intent to join him. “Did you have a good time?”

Ukai lifts his shoulder in a shrug. “It was alright,” he says. “I had a couple beers and decided to call it. I get sleepy when I have too much to drink.”

Takeda laughs. “You really are mature, Ukai.”

“You calling me an old man?” Ukai grins. He comes in to stand at the corner of the kitchen and lean against the wall that runs alongside the stove. There’s a pan sitting on one of the burners and the smell of browning butter rising from it; Takeda uses the spatula to spread the liquid out more evenly across the surface. “What are you doing still up?”

“I had a stack of papers to grade,” Takeda says. “I lost track of time working through them and by the time I was done I realized I hadn’t had dinner yet.” He sets the spatula aside and reaches for a bowl of batter sitting on the counter alongside the stove so he can spoon out a scoop and pour it into the center of the pan. “I thought it’d be fun to make breakfast for dinner.”

Ukai considers the spreading circle of batter shaping itself to solidity in the pan. “Pancakes?”

“That’s right,” Takeda says. “Would you like some?”

Ukai rocks back against the edge of the wall. “I don’t want to eat up all your food.”

Takeda laughs. “I can hardly eat all this batter myself,” he says. He catches the spatula under the edge of the pancake and lifts it to check the color before flipping it over in a careful motion. “I thought you were asleep or I would have knocked to invite you to join me anyway. It seems serendipitous for you to come in right now, don’t you think?”

Ukai huffs a breath. “I guess I can’t argue with that.” He looks out over the counter where Takeda has the batter and butter laid out. “What are you going to put on them?”

“I have some syrup somewhere, I believe,” Takeda says. “I thought about mixing up some cinnamon sugar to sprinkle over them as well.” Ukai shakes his head and Takeda glances up at him. “Do you not approve?”

“Syrup’s fine,” Ukai says. “But you’ve got to have fruit for pancakes.” He straightens from the wall and comes forward to maneuver around Takeda so he can make for the refrigerator. “I have some strawberries I got on Wednesday that would be perfect.”

“Oh no,” Takeda protests. “I don’t want to use up your groceries.”

Ukai looks back over his shoulder from reaching for the door to the fridge. “After insisting I eat yours?” he asks. “That’s hardly fair.” Takeda huffs a smile of capitulation and Ukai grins and turns back to the fridge to retrieve the plastic container of strawberries thus promised. He feels warm, aglow with the ease of mild intoxication and tingling with the pleasure of Takeda’s company; his usual concerns about giving away his persistent crush seem unimportant, something far off that he spends far too long fretting over. There’s no reason he can’t enjoy Takeda’s companionship, no reason they can’t share a friendly late-night meal; Ukai’s own less-than-platonic feelings may be present but there’s no logic to staying needlessly distant just because of his own interest. Better to appreciate Takeda’s conversation and the satisfaction of his company, and if Ukai has somewhat more pleasure in that than he might otherwise, well, that’s his own business. “Is there a cutting board somewhere around here?”

Takeda nods as he slides the spatula under the lip of the pancake to pull it out of the pan and onto the plate he has set out next to him. “It’s set into the counter.” He sets the spatula down and reaches to catch at the lip of wood just next to him; Ukai is already shaking the water away from the quick rinse he gave the fruit and stepping behind Takeda to lay claim to the space. There’s just enough room to fit the plastic box on the counter next to the plate for the cooked pancakes; Ukai collects a handful of fruit to drop on the edge of the cutting board before realizing he needs a knife as well.

“Sorry for my reach,” he says as he braces a hand at the counter and leans forward to stretch past Takeda and over the heat of the stovetop to the knife block. Takeda leans back fractionally to make space, but he’s occupied with the bowl of batter and doesn’t pull back as far as he might; Ukai’s forearm brushes the front of the other’s apron as he lays claim to the paring knife he needs. Ukai doesn’t look down, doesn’t take note of how close they’re standing, of how near the dark of Takeda’s hair and the line of his nose is, but he’s still flushed with heat as he returns to his slightly-safer position over the cutting board to make space for Takeda to pour the batter for the next pancake.

It’s a very small kitchen. The size makes for easy cooking with just one person: the lack of counter space aside, it’s a simple matter to handle multiple tasks at once when they’re all in easy reach of a single fixed point. Ukai’s never been it in with Takeda at the same time before, and with two people occupying a space comfortable for one they can’t help but bump into each other with almost every action they take. Ukai’s hip is pressing against Takeda’s if he stands anywhere at all other than awkwardly halfway around the corner, and Takeda’s sleeve skims Ukai’s elbow every time he moves to flip a pancake or deposit one onto the plate waiting to catch them; it would be enough to chase Ukai back to safety in other circumstances, if he were cooler-headed or more rational about the situation. But he’s tipsy, he feels aglow with the comfortable effect of a few beers and the lateness of the hour, and Takeda doesn’t seem to mind their proximity at all. Ukai wouldn’t be sure the other even notices, except for the occasional unthinking apologies Takeda offers when they tip too far into each other or when he reaches over Ukai for the emptied plastic container to take it to the recycling. It’s all casual contact, the intimacy of it comfortable and unthinking, and Ukai stays where he is while a smile pulls at the corner of his mouth and prickling happiness glows heat across his cheeks.

They’re done at nearly the same time. Takeda’s measuring cup hits the bottom of the mixing bowl as Ukai collects the leafy green of the sliced strawberries to toss, and by the time Ukai’s moved the slices of fruit into a bowl Takeda is pulling the last pancake off and onto the plate before moving to hang up his apron. Ukai takes the plate without asking and brings it to the rarely-used kitchen table along with the strawberries, and Takeda goes to get plates and silverware. Ukai finds a dish of sugar, and collects the butter from where Takeda was using it for the pan, and they’re just sitting down at opposite sides of the dining table as the clock on the stove switches over to indicate the start of a new day.

Takeda offers Ukai a plate over the food between them; Ukai takes it and serves himself a pair of pancakes and a pile of strawberries while Takeda slides silverware in across the table to fit around the space for Ukai’s absent plate. Ukai takes a bite while Takeda is still getting himself settled, and Takeda glances up and over the table to dimple a smile at him.

“How is it?” Ukai nods rather than trying to fit words into his full mouth and Takeda’s eyes sparkle bright with delight before he ducks down to follow the other’s example. Ukai keeps his gaze on Takeda as the other takes a bite; partially because he can see the shadow of Takeda’s lashes over the edge of his glasses with his head ducked forward, and mostly to see the flicker of pleasure that ripples over the other’s face at the simple satisfaction of good food. Takeda’s lashes dip, his head comes up, and for a moment Ukai can just watch unabashed appreciation go soft against Takeda’s lips and flush over his cheeks.

“Oh,” Takeda breathes. “That really _is_ good with the strawberries.”

“Told you,” Ukai grins at him. “Aren’t you glad you decided to keep me around after all?”

Takeda huffs a laugh that crinkles at the corners of his eyes and tugs softness into the dip of his mouth. “Of course,” he says, and reaches to cut himself another bite of their joint-effort breakfast. “I’m very grateful to have you here, Ukai.”

Ukai had been more than half-teasing, dipping his question into the dangerous edge of flirtation without thinking of it. But Takeda’s answer is sincere, intensely so, the words falling with a weight that utterly unravels the casual teasing that Ukai was aiming for. Ukai stares across the table at Takeda for a moment, feeling like he’s been caught in sudden free-fall, or perhaps more as if Takeda’s voice has reminded him of the existence of the gravity he had temporarily forgotten; and then Takeda looks up and beams at him without any kind of self-consciousness in the expression, and Ukai has to duck his head over his plate again just to hide some part of the blush that spreads out across his face.

They lapse into quiet after that -- it’s difficult to keep up a conversation while devouring a full plate of pancakes, after all -- but it’s as comfortable as their closeness in the kitchen was, even with Ukai still nursing the smile he can’t quite restrain.


	6. Latent

Ukai wakes up before Takeda the next morning. This is fairly unremarkable, on a normal day: Ukai’s low-priority freshman class selection has left him with a lecture that starts first thing in the morning, and his habit of rising before dawn to work at one part-time job or another has lingered to sometimes stir him awake before the sun is even approaching the horizon. But his late night and the effect of his few drinks persuade his body into the rest it seems so ready to fight at other times, and by the time he finally makes it out of bed and through a languid shower it’s well past ten in the morning and creeping on towards noon with surprising rapidity. Ukai doesn’t care -- he doesn’t have so much to do this weekend that he can’t afford a few leisurely hours -- but as time passes he begins to wonder if Takeda will make it awake in time to see any of the morning at all. Ukai takes his time with his morning routine, lingering so long over the process that his hair is nearly dry by the time he’s pulling a shirt over his head and fully so before he wanders back into the bathroom to work the tangles free and pull it back into a ponytail at the back of his neck; and then he leaves the bathroom door open to air out, and makes his way into the kitchen in pursuit of some kind of caffeine.

His options are somewhat limited. Neither he nor Takeda drink enough coffee to make it worth keeping in the house, and Ukai is feeling too lazy and comfortable to want to leave the apartment in search of a café. But there are a few boxes of tea in the cupboard, set out in the shared space between his and Takeda’s separate groceries, and Ukai knows by now where to find the kettle and teapot without having to rummage through every cabinet in the kitchen. He gets the kettle filled with water and set on the stove to boil, and the teapot ready and waiting for the hot water, and he’s just laying hands to a cup for himself when there’s the creak of a door opening at the other end of the hallway, shortly followed by the soft scuff of Takeda’s careful footsteps.

“Ukai?” Takeda comes around the corner to the kitchen while he’s still trying to get his glasses set straight on his nose. He’s as casually dressed as Ukai has ever seen him, in overlarge pajama pants and a t-shirt worn visibly soft by many washings; his hair is still tousled into more than its usual disarray by the effect of sleep. Ukai thinks, briefly and unavoidably, of the phrase _bedroom hair_ , and then immediately turns his head to look down at the cup in his hands rather than allowing that particular train of imagination to carry on unchecked. “Good morning.”

“Just barely,” Ukai says, and then steels himself to glance back at Takeda and flicker a smile at him to strip any unintended bite from the words. “I thought you might stay in past noon for once.”

Takeda huffs a laugh. Even that sounds softer than usual with the weight of sleep. “I didn’t realize how late it was when I went to bed. I might have set an alarm if I had thought of it.”

“You look like you made good use of the rest,” Ukai says, and then thankfully the kettle whistles and cuts off anything else he might see fit to blurt. He turns away to occupy himself in pouring the water and setting a timer to tell him when to pull out the tea leaves. “Hungry?”

“Mm,” Takeda hums. “Not after the pancakes last night. Are you making a full pot of tea?”

“Sure am,” Ukai says, and catches at the cup he pulled out already to gesture into an offer. “Want some?”

Takeda’s smile dimples at the corners of his mouth even with the gold of his eyes still sleep-hazed. “I’d love that. Thank you, Ukai.”

“No problem.” Ukai sets the cup back down and moves away towards the cabinet again to fumble another mug free of the overcrowded array of dishes in the space. “I’ll bring it over. Sugar?”

“Just a little.” Takeda shuffles out of the kitchen and into the living room, currently glowing bright with the near-noonday heat of the sun streaming in through the open blinds. Ukai glances at him just once, as Takeda is turning to settle himself on the couch; and then away again, to fix his attention on the plume of steam rising from the teapot instead of wandering the path of too-much interest against the back of Takeda’s neck and just inside the collar of that soft t-shirt.

Neither of them speak again to interrupt the quiet. It feels very peaceful, Ukai thinks, with the lateness of the hour to make their slow movement weighty with the languid indulgence of sleeping in. The smell of the tea is spreading through the kitchen, soft and almost sweet at the back of Ukai’s tongue, and on the couch Takeda has drawn his heels up at the edge of the cushions and draped his arms loose around the angle of his knees. It might look defensive, in someone else, or if there were more tension in his shoulders; with his head tipped sideways to rest heavy at the arm of the couch and his fingers clasped to gentle connection in front of him, it just makes him look comfortable, like a cat curling in on itself in a puddle of sunlight. Ukai stares longer than he should, his focus too distracted to catch back to himself without the urging of Takeda’s gaze coming up to catch him in the act; and then the timer beeps, and Ukai blinks hard, and turns away and back to manage the task he’s set for himself.

There are too many things to carry over to the living room table all at once. Ukai leaves the bowl of sugar and the unsweetened cup of tea for his second trip in favor of bringing over the teapot and Takeda’s mug first thing. Takeda doesn’t lift his head as Ukai comes across the floor from the kitchen; his eyes are shut, Ukai finds as he looks up from setting the teapot down, his head pillowed against the arm of the couch with clear comfort. His breathing is slow and more even than Ukai has ever known it to be before; he’s the picture of comfort and relaxation with the sunlight catching highlights off the dark curls of his hair. Ukai watches Takeda for a moment, caught out of his own better judgment by the peace filling the apartment; and then his gaze slides to the part of Takeda’s lips, the curve of them catching to frame against the soft of unconsciousness, and Ukai can feel his whole body go hot with self-consciousness even as his imagination purrs with absurd fantasy. He ducks his head, and takes a breath to force himself back to reality, and when he lifts his gaze to look at Takeda again he keeps his attention firmly on the angle of the other’s wrist rather than risking the dark of his lashes and the glow of his cheeks again. He reaches out over the gap between them, feeling the tingling awareness of proximity even with the excuse of the cup in his hand, and when he bumps the curve of the ceramic against Takeda’s wrist it’s with conscious care to keep from startling or burning the other.

“Takeda,” Ukai says, murmuring the other’s name as a match for the gentle pressure of the cup against his arm. “Wake up. There’s tea.”

“Mm?” Takeda stirs against the couch, his head turning down as his shoulders shift as if to work out tension from them. He lifts his head and blinks sleepy focus at Ukai. “Oh. Thank you.” He reaches to claim the cup the other is holding with both hands clasped close around the shape of it; Ukai lets go slowly to make sure Takeda has it before he pushes to his feet to take himself farther away from the sleep-warmed temptation that Takeda is exuding. “That didn’t seem to take any time at all.”

“I bet,” Ukai says without turning around from where he’s collecting the sugar and his own mug of tea. “Pretty sure that’s because you fell asleep.”

“Did I?” Takeda’s voice isn’t much better than his face; something about the catch of it is making him sound almost breathless, like he’s been knocked into too-much pleasure and is unsure how to find his way back to coherency. Or maybe it’s just Ukai’s imagination that is doing that, too alight with the physical contentment of the morning and the unusual intimacy of Takeda’s present state to hold him to something like rationality. Ukai almost wishes he had a hangover instead, just for the distraction it would give him from the battle he’s waging against the ache of desire curling itself to a too-familiar knot in his stomach. “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to fall asleep on you.”

Ukai snorts. “You didn’t,” he says. He keeps his focus on the cup in his hand as an excuse for not meeting Takeda’s gaze as he comes back from the kitchen. “I’m not nearly as comfortable a support as the couch, I promise.”

Takeda hums something in the back of his throat, the sound of perhaps-disagreement muffled by the barrier of the cup he’s lifting to his lips as he sips at the tea. “I suspect you are undervaluing yourself,” he says. “I’m sure you’d make an excellent pillow.”

Ukai’s just in the process of sitting down on the far side of the table -- on the floor, rather than the couch, for what protection from his own appreciation the extra distance might grant him -- when he parses the suggestion under Takeda’s words. His head comes up, his attempt to set down his cup of tea entirely forgotten in the first wave of shock that hits him even before doubt sweeps in; but Takeda is ducked in over his own cup, his gaze cast down and his attention apparently fully fixed on the steaming liquid before him. Some part of the heat has clouded his glasses; Ukai can’t get any angle at all on the look in the other’s eyes with the fog hiding them. For a moment Ukai just stares, his cup forgotten where he’s cradling the shape of it between both hands while his thoughts stutter and skip over the implication of Takeda’s words. The weight of them is understood immediately: with his thoughts already as distracted as they are, Ukai’s imagination is too-quick to offer the idea of Takeda’s head pillowed on his shoulder, or his chest, or the dangerous intimacy of his lap. He’s glad he’s sitting down, and with the low table between the front of his pants and Takeda’s gaze, and in the middle of settling himself so he can make the sideways angle of his knee into a barrier less blatant than it would be otherwise. That’s the first concern, of maintaining some measure of decency under the current circumstances; it’s only after that Ukai can spare the thought to consider Takeda’s words and try to unravel them towards something like reason again.

There must be some explanation. Takeda’s still half-asleep, maybe he’s not paying attention to what he’s saying for the distraction of the tea he’s sipping against; or maybe he meant something other than the obvious, maybe it’s some ill-phrased sentiment that Ukai’s mind has swerved into innuendo. But it’s too direct, too obvious; it’s not innuendo at all, really, not when the flirtation is so clear. Ukai can’t convince himself that Takeda is that oblivious, that he is that unaware of what he’s saying; and in the end he has to duck his head over his own cup and tighten his grip against the sides as he seeks for something appropriately casual to offer in response. “Do you overestimate everyone’s potential, or is it just me?”

Takeda laughs. Ukai doesn’t dare look up to meet his gaze any more than he can help himself from reacting. He glances up without lifting his head, cutting his attention under the shadowed weight of his lashes; Takeda is smiling down into his cup of tea, his gaze cast into the dark of the liquid and his cheeks flushing into color even as he takes a breath to speak. “I like to think I have a good eye for possibilities in others.”

Ukai rocks back from the table, leaving one hand cradling his cup while he presses the other flat to the ground and leans back against the support of his arm. “I see how it is,” he says, drawling the words into unnecessary but satisfying heat. Takeda’s gaze comes up from his tea to meet Ukai’s; Ukai gives in to the urge to meet his attention instead of the one telling him to flinch away. “I’m just another one of your undergrads, is that it?”

Takeda’s eyes open wide behind the cover of his glasses; for a moment Ukai thinks he may be in some danger of outright dropping his teacup for how complete his surprise is. “What?” he blurts. “No, I--that’s not--”

“Careful there,” Ukai warns, grinning wider than he probably should and not caring enough to try to hold back the expression. “Are you going to admit to caring more about some stranger than the students you’re responsible for?” Takeda’s blush darkens across his cheeks, glowing brilliant to spread across the whole of his face. Ukai lifts his cup to his mouth to take a sip of the tea as best he can around the grin he’s entirely given up on restraining; when he sets it down against the table it’s with a sound of finality, like the punctuation on a closing argument. “What’s it to be, professor?”

Ukai hadn’t thought Takeda’s blush could darken further and yet he is forced to admit it does, when confronted with the proof of it happening right before him. Takeda blinks hard, looking shaken right out of himself, and presses his lips tight together like he’s trying to hold back words as he shakes his head. “I’m not a professor.”

“You will be eventually,” Ukai tells him. He’d be worried about pushing too far -- Takeda really is all but glowing where he’s curled up on the couch, and Ukai doesn’t want to take flirting into outright teasing -- but there’s a dimple trying to form against the corner of the other’s mouth, so Ukai judges himself safe. “I’m just anticipating the inevitable.”

“I won’t necessarily be teaching,” Takeda attempts. “That would require securing a faculty position for myself.”

“Doctor, then,” Ukai amends. “That’ll be true, right?”

Takeda ducks his head forward, but the light is too clear against his face to hide the smile at his lips. “That’s still years away.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ukai tells him. “If you get to believe in me I get to believe in you, that’s how that works.”

Takeda glances up at Ukai. “Is that so?”

“Yeah.” Ukai straightens again and reaches out to lay claim to his cup of tea. He braces an elbow at the table and extends the mug over the distance. “To potential.”

Takeda smiles entirely at that and reaches out to tap his cup against the lip of Ukai’s. Ukai grins at him and lifts his mug to his mouth for a swallow; Takeda lingers in the movement as he finishes the last of the tea in his own cup. Ukai nods towards the mug as Takeda sets it down. “Refill?”

Takeda shakes his head. “In a bit,” he says, and unfolds to get to his feet. “I should take a shower first and get properly dressed before it’s too late.”

“I’ll be right here,” Ukai tells him, topping off his own cup in lieu of refilling Takeda’s. “If you hurry there’ll still be some tea left.”

Takeda smiles at him. “I’ll be efficient,” he says, and steps forward around the table to head for the hallway. Ukai doesn’t look back to watch him go -- a triumph of self-restraint, he thinks -- and so he’s just setting the teapot down when there’s a breath from the hallway behind him.

“Ukai.” Ukai turns to look back. Takeda’s standing in the hallway, framed perfectly by the walls around him; he has his hands clasped in front of him, his fingers interlaced with each other like he’s a nervous child bracing himself for a presentation. Ukai blinks confusion, but Takeda doesn’t give him time to wonder; he’s taking a breath and speaking at once, in a clear voice as well-suited for that presentation as his position.

“I do care very much about my students,” he says carefully. “I want to guide them to success and help them reach their fullest potential.” He blinks hard and lifts his chin; the sunlight cuts clear through the lenses of his glasses to light his eyes to gold. There’s a hint of color on his cheeks, the lingering effect of his stupendous blush, but his mouth is firm on certainty, and when he speaks there’s no tremor in his voice at all. “The way I feel towards you is something quite different than that.” Ukai’s eyes widen, his breath catches; but Takeda just tips his head, and offers him a smile as warm as sunlight, and turns to vanish through the door to the bathroom.

Ukai is left sitting in the middle of the living room floor, his cup of tea forgotten in his hand and his heart skipping in his chest, listening to the sound of the shower running and trying to decide if that really was the confession it sounded. He doesn’t have an answer by the time the water shuts off, any more than he has a handle on the heat trembling through him, but he doesn’t move from his position at the table either, and he figures that’s the most potential he can hold in himself at the moment anyway.


	7. Communal

Midterms catch up with Ukai all at once. The first few weeks of the quarter are sedate, easier than he expected and free of much stress at all beyond his personal, constant problem of his ever-growing crush on his roommate; but at least his studies don’t suffer for it, with the manageable amount of time they demand of him. Then one of his classes mentions the date for the midterm exam, and by the end of the week two others have scheduled a project and a test to fall within the same week. By the time the weekend arrives Ukai has a major undertaking in all four of his classes, all due in the span of three days within a single week, and his romantic daydreams are entirely given over so he can focus on his education instead.

He gets the project done first. That takes him the longest amount of time, even just to get a grasp on what it is he’s trying to undertake, and even when it’s finished what relief comes with completion is drastically undermined by the burden of the tests Ukai has hardly studied for. He refuses all invitations to parties to spend his time studying, and starts laying claim even to time spent on the bus on the way to school to fit in a few extra minutes. By the time the weekend before his tests arrives he feels as if his life has narrowed down to the span of pages in an open textbook and the smear of graphite against the edge of his wrist as he works out problems.

He studies everywhere. On the bus, in class before lecture begins, over his lunchbreak and into the evenings. The material isn’t terribly difficult, he thinks, but there’s more of it to review than there had seemed to be when he initially covered it in class, and paranoia about wasted time keeps him from relaxing into sleep until he’s utterly drained. The late hours of the night are the best for review, for the peace they give from distractions outside and the complete focus that Ukai can fall into when he doesn’t need to pay attention to the clock, until midnight on Saturday finds him still on the living room couch, hunched in over a textbook as he toys with a pencil without thinking about the motion at all.

He hasn’t seen Takeda for days. They spoke briefly Thursday morning, when Ukai returned to the apartment just as Takeda was leaving, but other than a quick smile and polite farewell there has been no chance to return to the almost-flirtation they toyed with over their last interaction. There’s some interest there, a sparkle of intrigue that Ukai would like to lay hands to, if he can figure out how to frame the details in the span of his own thoughts: but it’s a distraction right now, and he’s done his best to barely think of it. He hasn’t even remembered that he has a roommate for most of the day, any more than he’s consciously recognized his own existence as anything more than a sponge for knowledge; when the door to Takeda’s bedroom opens, it takes Ukai a long moment before he can extricate himself enough from his text to even look up.

Takeda smiles carefully as he comes forward through the hallway. “Sorry to intrude,” he says. “I wanted to make some tea. I’ll be out of your way as soon as it’s done.”

Ukai shrugs. “It’s fine, it’s your home too.” He sets his textbook down on the table and shifts to roll his shoulders out. They don’t crack audibly, but from the way he can feel them straining over the motion it’s a closer thing than otherwise. “I should probably take a break anyway.”

“It’s been hours since I heard you move,” Takeda agrees as he comes into the kitchen to come up on tiptoe and fumble for the box of tea. “Not that I’ve been paying the most attention to anything other than my own books, I’m afraid.”

Ukai leans sideways to brace his elbow at the side of the couch so he can prop his chin on his hand and watch Takeda for a few minutes of exhaustion-blurred distraction. “It’s been rough,” he admits. “It’s only worse for you, right?” He lifts a hand to gesture towards the cupboard; Takeda glances back at him, his attention caught by the motion, Ukai thinks, more than anything else. “There’s some instant coffee on my side if you’d prefer that. It’s not great, but…”

“That’s perfect,” Takeda says with feeling, and gives up his attempt at tea for Ukai’s side of the cupboard instead. “Tea’s a little easier to drink, usually, but under the circumstances…”

“Staying awake is more important,” Ukai finishes for him. “I get it.” He straightens from his recline over the edge of the couch so he can draw his textbook in towards him instead. “If you make me a cup too you can have as much as you want.”

Takeda’s laugh is warmly sincere, even if Ukai can hear the weight of exhaustion on the sound. “That’s quite generous of you,” he says. “You may regret making that offer, Ukai.”

“I can buy more,” Ukai answers. “Besides, after tests are done I think I’m not going to want to do anything but sleep for a week.”

“I understand entirely,” Takeda says with feeling before falling silent over what he’s doing. There’s the sound of ceramic clinking against the counter, the hiss of the burner on the stove coming on and the rattle of silverware in the drawer as Takeda looks for spoons; but the noise is distant from Ukai’s bleary thoughts, it sounds more like a lullaby than the distraction it might be to more anxious energy. His shoulders ease, his body relaxes, and by the time Takeda is coming over to set a cup of coffee in front of him Ukai feels like he’s gaining a second wind of stamina even before the drink.

“Thanks,” he says, setting his textbook down so he can reach for the mug instead. “To caffeine.”

Takeda’s smile is still strong enough to dimple at his cheek, even if his eyes are shadowed with the effects of sleeplessness and stress. “Indeed,” he says, and taps his mug against Ukai’s own. They both take a sip at the same time; it’s too hot to drink much of the liquid inside at all, but the heat as much as the bitter flavor jolts into Ukai’s thoughts with a jarring effect he’s more grateful for than otherwise. He blinks, and sighs, and reaches for his textbook again, and at the edge of the couch Takeda shifts to take a step.

“I’d better get back to work,” he says, sounding almost apologetic. He’s smiling when Ukai glances up at him; it’s almost painful to see the sincerity of that expression behind eyes that look so exhausted. “Good luck with your studying.” He lifts a hand to wave and turns to pad back towards the silence of his room.

Ukai watches Takeda go, his thoughts dragging themselves free as if they’re sticking in tar; it’s hard to follow them through to their conclusion, hard to identify the ache against the inside of his chest as the sympathy it is, as the loneliness it might be. The delay is so much that Takeda is reaching to push the open door of his room wider by the time Ukai finds voice enough to speak, and he has to almost call across the span of the apartment to make sure he’s heard.

“Takeda.” Takeda’s much faster to react than Ukai was; he looks back at once, turning back as immediately as if he was just waiting for the sound of the other’s voice. It’s overwhelming to have that focus turned on him so abruptly; Ukai thinks he might be struck speechless by it in other circumstances. But his word are lagging a beat behind his thoughts, he has to form them with deliberate intent, and he’s already halfway through speaking what he intended to say by the time he even thinks to be self-conscious. “You could study out here with me.” The words sound almost pleading, like Ukai is begging for comfort; he presses his lips together and shakes his head to try to free himself of some of the burn of embarrassment that flickers through him just at the sound of his own voice. “It’s fine if you don’t want to too. Just if you wanted the company, we could--”

“Yes,” Takeda says, at once, speaking quickly enough that he cuts Ukai off outright. “Yes, that would be wonderful. I think I’m likely to fall asleep over my desk if I keep trying to do it on my own.”

“We can help keep each other awake,” Ukai says. It’s only after he’s spoken that he hears the suggestion on it, as his recently-ignored crush stirs back into consciousness; but Takeda is smiling all over his face without any visible indication that he parsed the possible implication, and Ukai’s too tired to keep holding onto his embarrassment.

“I’ll be right back,” Takeda promises, and then he’s ducking into his room to collect his things. Ukai ducks his head down over his textbook again in an attempt to refocus on the words in front of him, but his heart is beating too fast and his thoughts are too sleep-hazy to let him focus. By the time Takeda is coming back out from his room with a stack of books in one arm and his cup of coffee in the other Ukai has made absolutely no progress in the paragraph he’s trying to get through. He looks up as Takeda returns, moving slow with the effort of balancing too many things at once, and he sets his own textbook open on the edge of the table so he can offer a hand to take at least the danger of the coffee cup from Takeda’s hold.

“Thank you,” Takeda tells him, relief audible on his tone as he lifts a hand to urge his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. He drops to sit on the other side of the couch before leaning forward to set his textbooks atop the table; with Ukai closer to the center of the couch than otherwise, they’re near enough that Ukai could tip his knee out to bump against Takeda’s alongside him if he wanted to. He gazes at the gap between them for a moment, his attention fitting itself into the very few inches between his leg and Takeda’s; and then Takeda sits up, and pushes his glasses up again, and Ukai looks up again to meet Takeda’s beaming smile.

“I can take that back,” Takeda says, and reaches out to catch his fingers around the weight of the cup in Ukai’s hold. “Thank you.” Ukai surrenders the mug obediently, happy to hand over the weight and happier for the excuse it gives for Takeda’s fingers brushing against his little finger before he turns to return his textbook to his lap and reaches for his own cup of coffee. Takeda is getting settled alongside him with the same easy grace, sliding a book free of the pile before him and flipping through it to find his place one-handed; Ukai only glances at him for a moment before turning back to his own studies, but Takeda must see the motion of the other’s turn, or maybe he just senses Ukai’s eyes on him, because he looks up at once as if Ukai had called his name. His lips curve on a smile, he lifts his mug in the sketch of a toast; Ukai is left to smile back and return the gesture, as helpless to the pressure of happiness in his chest as he is unable to stifle the prickle of electricity winding up his arm from that moment of contact.

At least one thing’s for certain, Ukai reflects as he looks back down to his textbook. He doesn’t have to worry at all about falling asleep now.


	8. Indulgent

Ukai wakes up warm.

It’s not that he’s particularly comfortable. There’s a crick in his neck, and an ache across his shoulders, and the strange, stiff pain throughout his body that comes from sleeping too deeply in an uncomfortable position. His thoughts are still hazy, suffering under the effect of insufficient rest even after dragging him down into dreamless sleep for however long he’s been unconscious; it takes him some time even to be aware of his own mind, and another span before he can figure out his present position.

He’s still upright, mostly, or at least closer to sitting up than lying down; his head is tipped far back to weight against the support of what must be the couch behind him, his shoulders are slumped to the side where they drifted after sleep took conscious control of his body from his grasp. He thinks he would have fallen entirely down across the couch and into the somewhat greater comfort the cushions might offer, except that there’s a pressure against his shoulder, force and warmth together; it’s that that has kept him upright, Ukai determines as he open his eyes and blinks hazily at the grey pre-dawn light in the room, and it’s that that’s to blame for the glow of heat all against his right side. He stays still for a moment, staring up at the ceiling while he tries to muster the energy to actually stir himself into motion; and then he lifts his head at once, achieving movement even if it comes with a groan of effort, and looks down at the cause of his less-than-comfortable night.

Takeda is still next to him on the couch, right where he settled himself last night. They had left inches of space between them to begin with, even if Ukai had been more than aware of every shift of Takeda’s body or his own to draw them closer; it must have been sometime after one or the other of them fell asleep that they tipped in towards each other like this, to rely on the support of each other’s bodies rather than holding to the distance of their own. Gravity has pulled Takeda in against Ukai’s shoulder as surely as it drew Ukai tipping down against the couch supporting behind him, but where Ukai’s head ended up pressing to the back of the couch Takeda’s is resting heavy at Ukai’s shoulder, his head pillowed against the fall of the other’s shirt to pin it close to his skin. His eyes are closed, his breathing is slow, his hands are slack in his lap; even with the uncomfortable position, he is clearly still deeply, profoundly asleep.

For a moment Ukai doesn’t move at all. He’s still struggling with the clarity of his own thoughts, still trying to fight his way back to something like understanding through the haze of sleep and discomfort and general exhaustion; it’s hard to come to terms with his present situation with any rapidity, under the circumstances. And it’s not just the circumstances to blame: it’s Ukai’s imagination, too, as the foggy suggestion of dreams risies much more quickly than rational clarity to the forefront of his mind. Takeda tipped in against the support of his shoulder, his head angled to rest at Ukai’s shirt, his breathing coming warm almost atop Ukai’s collarbone: it’s all more than Ukai is at all prepared to deal with all at once. The details are pristine, clear and vivid and unfading even as Ukai blinks; that’s the only thing that tells him this isn’t a dream, that it won’t skip and haze into one of the more heated interludes Ukai’s unconscious has mustered for him. It feels impossible to have this so close, to have something so nearly a match for Ukai’s more restrained fantasies; it feels invasive, to linger in appreciation of this with Takeda unaware of it. Ukai feels his face heat with self-consciousness even at the thought, and then he shifts his shoulders with deliberate intent, as if to free his arm so he can stretch out some of the knots in his back. Takeda shifts against him, moved by the other’s action; for a moment Ukai is afraid he’ll go on sleeping, that Ukai’s motion will achieve no more than knocking his balance into an even more intimate position. But then Takeda stirs, his lashes shifting as he turns in against the support of Ukai’s shoulder with the first impulsive motion of waking, and Ukai’s concern is forgotten in the flutter of warmth that hits him at the weight of Takeda pressing in against his shoulder.

“Mm,” Takeda mumbles, his voice too soft and sleepy for Ukai to make any more sense of it than a wordless whimper. His lashes shift, his eyes come open to blink hazy attention at Ukai’s shirt. “Ukai?” He lifts a hand from his lap to brace and push himself to upright; Ukai tries not to flinch at the weight of the fingers that catch and hold at his thigh, but he’s absolutely certain that he fails as spectacularly at that as at fighting back the rush of heat that courses through him at the weight of Takeda’s hand so high up against his jeans. Takeda lifts his head to offer hazy focus to Ukai’s face; Ukai looks back at him, because even the danger of those bright eyes is a better point of attention than the spread of those fingers.

They stare at each other for a moment. They are far closer than Ukai thinks they’ve ever been before; with Takeda’s gaze blurred by drowsiness and his cheek marked with a line from the seam of Ukai’s shirt, Ukai can hardly stand to hold himself back from leaning in over the distance between them, from ducking in and pressing his mouth close against the curve of Takeda’s. Takeda is gazing up at him with something between confusion and affection in his eyes already, his mouth is curving onto a sleepy smile; surely all Ukai has to do is lay claim to the give of his lips, to catch his hand at the back of Takeda’s head and catch Takeda’s mouth under the weight of his own and kiss him back out of what little focus he has captured already. It would be easy, would hardly be any movement at all; they’re already pressed together on the couch, already have the soft of the furniture under them like an invitation. Ukai could urge Takeda back and down, could fit a thumb against the sharp angle of the other’s hip and wind his fingers into dark curls and kiss him until Takeda’s glasses are as foggy as Ukai’s thoughts, until Ukai is winning more of those soft whimpers from Takeda’s throat on his own doing, this time. He could press his mouth in against the pace of Takeda’s pulse in his neck, could wind his fingers up under the loose fall of the other’s shirt, could urge his legs open and kiss down his stomach until Takeda’s fingers curled to fists in his hair, until Takeda--

“ _Oh_ ,” Takeda blurts, and there’s enough shock on his voice to jolt Ukai out of the haze of imagination he was wandering in. Takeda pushes up at once, sitting up straight in a single rush of motion. “I fell asleep on you. Ukai, I am so sorry.”

Ukai shakes his head. It’s the most he can offer at the moment with his throat as closed-up on heat as it is. Takeda has gone pink, color spreading across his cheeks like the dawn breaking early in his face; and then he looks down, and pink darkens to scarlet in the span between one breath and the next.

“ _Ah_ ” and he snatches his hand away at once, pulling back with as much speed as if Ukai’s body is burning him. Ukai honestly wouldn’t be overly surprised if it actually were; he certainly feels molten-hot enough to blister skin. “Oh, I. I’m sorry, I.” Takeda ducks his head forward, his face glowing scarlet with embarrassment, and Ukai struggles through a swallow and forces himself into speech.

“‘S fine.” His voice is strained, so tense on strangled want that it undermines his words immediately, but it’s the only thing he can think to offer when the rest of his body feels as if it’s been locked into place by the weight of Takeda’s touch against him. Takeda glances up to meet Ukai’s gaze, just for a moment; Ukai has no idea what the other sees in his expression before Takeda turns his head to look out across the living room instead of at Ukai next to him.

“I should,” Takeda says, incoherency stumbling past his lips as he blinks hard as if to steady himself. “I should take a shower.” He gets to his feet at once, fumbling with the motion until Ukai has a breath to wonder if he’s going to topple head-first onto the table in front of them covered with the textbooks they were working through last night. It’s a relief when Takeda catches himself with a grab at the arm of the couch; Ukai doesn’t want him to fall, but he really can’t remember how to move any part of his body at the moment, and he certainly doesn’t trust himself to let Takeda go if he were to catch the whole of the other’s balance in the hold of his arms. Takeda lifts his hand to push his hair back from his face and takes a few quick steps forward, almost running in his haste to put distance between himself and Ukai; it’s only as he reaches the hallway that he catches himself and pauses to look back. “Unless...did you want to take a shower first?”

Ukai shakes his head, a sharp, desperate motion. “No,” he manages. He still sounds like he’s choking on the air in his lungs, like he’s standing on a mountaintop and wheezing for breath. “No, I’ll wait here.”

Takeda ducks his head into a nod. “Okay,” he says, but he doesn’t turn around. They stare at each other for a moment from across the space of the living room, Takeda’s face still glowing with color and Ukai feeling dizzy and lightheaded from his present inability to breathe at all. Then Takeda takes a breath and straightens his shoulders, the motion a giveaway for his words before he even says them. “I really am sorry.”

Ukai doesn’t really have an answer. He can hardly speak, can’t think at all, can’t process anything but the ache of heat in him and the scalding burn of embarrassment layered over that deep-down purr of desire; but Takeda’s eyes are pleading, and his voice is trembling in spite of the clarity of his tone, and more than anything else Ukai doesn’t want to leave the other with the wrong impression on this point. He drags at air, filling his lungs with desperate intent, and when he opens his mouth it’s to force words out.

“It’s fine,” he says again, with somewhat more clarity if not much more calm. He shakes his head and attempts a smile, though he isn’t at all sure it comes through. “I uh. I don’t mind.” He tightens the fingers of his hand at his side into a fist, attempting to dig his nails in hard against his palm to steady himself with the edge of pain. His second attempt at a smile feels a little more sincere. “I guess we’re both too old to pull off a proper all-nighter.”

Takeda huffs a laugh that sounds at least a little bit sincere and not just strained on nerves. “I suppose so,” he says, and finally moves to turn back down the hall. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”

“Take your time,” Ukai calls after him, and watches Takeda vanish around the corner into the bathroom. He waits for the door to click shut, waits for the sound of the lock turning and the fan coming on; and then the water starts up, and Ukai’s self-restraint gives way as if dissolving under the rush of the shower in the other room.

He ought to go back to his bedroom. He knows that, he’s thinking it even as he pushes back to lean hard against the support of the couch and reach to open the front of his jeans with fingers trembling with reckless tension. This will be difficult to explain if he’s caught, if Takeda has any reason to come back out from the bathroom for a towel or a change of clothes or anything else he might need; but Ukai’s heart is pounding too hard for him to give the danger the weight it deserves, and his imagination is clinging to his present position as if to hold the memory of Takeda’s presence closer by his physical location. Ukai tips his head back against the support of the couch, craning his neck to the side so he can keep his gaze focused on the hallway just in case the bathroom door does comes open, and he pushes his jeans off his hips by an inch so he can close his fingers tight around the ache of want in his cock and stroke relief out into the thunder of desire coursing through him.

It’s too much. Ukai’s been resisting as long as he can, has been taking what relief he can find when he needs it in the interests of keeping himself calmer rather than tempting a desperate imagination, but there’s no question of where his thoughts are tending now, and he lacks the self-control to pull his fantasies back from the edge over which they’re tipping. Takeda is his roommate, maybe something like a friend, surely not someone Ukai ought to be thinking of like this: but he has eyes like burnished gold, and a smile like sunshine, and right now all Ukai can think of is the feel of those soft curls against the side of his neck and the print of his shirt sleeve pressed into the give of Takeda’s skin. He can see it too clearly, as if Takeda is still here, still right next to him, and his imagination dares what he did not, and reaches out to close the gap between them with all the decisive force of fantasy.

Ukai can see it, can feel it, the line of Takeda’s hips under his hands, the feel of Takeda’s knee sliding between his own: the way Takeda’s mouth would feel opening under his, the force of delicate fingers winding into his hair and fisting at the back of his neck. He can taste Takeda’s whimpered moans on his tongue, can feel the strain of the other’s leg pressing tight against his hip; Ukai knows how those glasses would look knocked off-center and hazy by heat instead of sleep, by his own doing instead of the uncaring effects of unconsciousness. Ukai wants to see those dark lashes dipping under their own weight, wants to feel the rush of Takeda’s breathing coming in pants against his lips; he wants to taste the sound of pleasure on Takeda’s tongue, wants to feel the vibration of his name in the other’s throat against his close-pressed mouth. The shower’s still running, water splashing against the tile to promise Ukai the brief opportunity for satisfaction he has; and Ukai can picture that, too, can imagine rivulets of water trailing along the curve of Takeda’s spine and sticking his hair flat to his head. Maybe he’s leaning hard against the wall of the shower right now, myopic eyes shut tight and a hand pressed over his mouth to stifle his breathing as he works a hand over himself, as he strokes in instinctive time with the force of Ukai’s own movement; and Ukai’s head goes back, his vision gives way, and he comes all across his fingers and the front of his shirt, shaking through the helpless tremors of heat that ripple through him. He can’t stop himself, can’t catch himself back; if Takeda were to step out of the bathroom right now Ukai would just go on as he is, trembling through waves of pleasure under the focus of those bright eyes. For a moment the thought is fuel to the fire, enough to pull another quaver of heat from Ukai, another jolt of pleasure from his imagination; and then the tension fades, the heat eases, and the chill of self-consciousness steps in smoothly to take its place.

Ukai lifts his head from the back of the couch, blinking hard to clear his vision as he stares at the door to the bathroom as if willing it to open. His heart is pounding, his skin is flushed; if Takeda comes out right now there will be no way to hide what he’s just done. But the door stays shut, the water keeps splashing against tile; and adrenaline takes control, surging Ukai to his feet at once as the possibility of concealment begins to feel a reality. He doesn’t try to tidy himself, doesn’t make any attempt at cleaning up; enough to catch at the weight of his pants with one hand, and shuffle down the hall towards his bedroom door, and slip inside with as much quiet as he can muster. Once there he strips at once, hurrying as if Takeda is at all likely to so much as knock against the bedroom door once closed; it’s only once he has himself cleaned up and with a fresh shirt and pants on that he can take a breath and consider the possibility of getting away with his absurd indulgence. There’s nothing to give him away in his appearance, nothing but a slight flush across his cheeks to speak to his recent activities. His change in clothes is a hint in itself, giving away a reason to do so before taking his own turn in the bathroom; Ukai decides to claim a need for more time studying for his lack of shower and pulls his hair back into a ponytail to keep the weight of it off his face instead. Then all that’s left is to open the door and return to his original position on the couch; after a moment Ukai even picks up a textbook to give himself the excuse of some occupation.

He’s made it through a full chapter by the time the bathroom door finally opens to admit Takeda into the hallway, a towel wrapped around his hips and his clothes piled in his arms; Ukai only glances at him, but even that is enough to flush his cheeks to heat all over again even before Takeda has shut his door behind him to change. Ukai shuts his eyes for a moment, and lifts a hand to press against his face for a breath; and then he lets it fall with a sigh, and returns to his utterly futile attempt to distract himself from the burden of his own feelings.


	9. Relief

The next days pass in a blur. Ukai thinks he would feel guilty over his indulgence after the night with Takeda, would waste long hours and sleepless nights agonizing over it, in other circumstances: but he can feel his tests coming for him like a storm, and in the end the dug-deep nervousness about his midterms overcomes even his embarrassed self-consciousness about his feelings for his roommate. He spends the rest of the weekend studying, doing last rounds of reviews and worrying over the items he misses, before finally collapsing into bed to gain a long, uninterrupted night’s rest before beginning the trials themselves.

He has no idea how the tests go. There’s no space to breathe, it seems, no real chance to take stock of his performance while he’s in the midst of it; each hurdle cleared only brings the next bearing down on him the sooner, until by the time Ukai leaves the apartment on Wednesday morning he feels certain the stress of the last week must be printed clear on his face for anyone to see. He arrives at class on time, and makes it through the whole of the test with time enough to spare to proofread his work for a handful of the problems; and then he’s shuffling to the front along with the rest of the lecture hall to drop his paper into the growing pile of completed exams, and he’s free.

It’s strange to think about, hard to believe; Ukai lets himself be carried up and out of the hall, borne forward on the wave of humanity around him until he’s outside of the doors entirely and standing in the glow of the morning sunlight. The crowd dissipates from there, scattering in all directions on their way through their own schedules and to their next assignment, and Ukai is left alone, standing still on the sidewalk with the sun burning tears at the corners of his eyes and his shoulders so oddly light he feels like he could stumble right off the earth itself if he takes an unwary step. He tries one, just to test it, to prove to himself that he’s still real, that there’s something of him left after the ordeal of midterms he’s just made it through; and then he huffs a laugh, and he turns down the sidewalk to make his way back towards the bus terminal.

He has another class this morning. By all rights he should be crossing the distance of campus to make his way to another lecture hall, to settle himself in the back row and let the words of his professor wash over him. Next time, Ukai thinks, he will, he’ll finish out his day fully no matter what tests he has struggled through in his first classes. But he’s exhausted, he can feel the weight of it down in the marrow of his bones, and he thinks he’s unlikely to be anything more than confused by any new material he tries to learn right now. He just wants to be at home, wants to drop his bag as entirely as he has dropped the last of his responsibilities and fall onto the couch and not move from there for an uninterrupted span of hours.

The bus ride seems shorter than usual. Ukai is conscious for all of it, by the technical sense -- his eyes are open, he’s watching the scenery go by, he’s aware of his surroundings -- but with nothing to study to fill every moment the time seems to move more quickly, like it’s been set free of some unnatural restraint and is celebrating with easy motion. Ukai watches the cars pass, watches other clusters of passengers climb on or disembark the bus; and finally it’s pulling in to his own stop, and he’s getting up and stepping out of the back doors. His feet take over from there, happy to steer him without any deliberate guidance at all, until Ukai blinks to find himself approaching the front door of the apartment and reaching to try the door.

It’s unlocked, when he pushes against the weight of it. The door comes open, Ukai steps inside, and Takeda looks over from the kitchen, where he’s tipped in over the counter and eating a slice of toast over the sink. His mouth is too full to allow for speech, and his lopsided tie and unbuttoned shirt cuffs speak to the hurry he’s in as much as his hasty meal, but he flashes Ukai a smile all the same and lifts the hand not occupied with a piece of toast in a wave. Ukai waves back, acting on autopilot instead of any conscious thought as he slides his shoes off by the door and comes forward towards the living room. His bag he drops alongside the couch, his body follows to land against the cushions, and with his face down against the pillows underneath him Ukai heaves a sigh heavy enough to shed all the weight of anxiety that he has been carrying with him for the last several days.

It shouldn’t be a hugely comfortable position. Ukai’s foot is caught at the end of the couch, tipped up higher than the rest of him, and he’s lying face-down atop the cushions with one arm dangling over the edge of the couch so his hand is resting at the floor. But his whole body is heavy, like his muscles have grown suddenly weak with the removal of the tension that was holding him together, and at the moment Ukai can’t imagine anything else being more comfortable than right where he is right now, sprawling into space-filling relaxation all across the living room couch. He can hear the sound of Takeda in the kitchen, the soft clink of ceramic against the counter as the other lifts his cup of tea and the scuff of footsteps made soft with consideration as he moves; it’s surprisingly pleasant just to hear the proof of someone else’s existence while Ukai lies still and quiet. It makes him feel like he could be older, like this could be his home instead of a rented apartment, like the sound of Takeda moving might be the morning routine of a husband or a lover instead of the polite care of a friendly roommate; and Ukai’s daydream spreads out, laying itself over the details of his reality until it overcomes them and he slides into sleep entirely.

He has no idea how long he sleeps for. He had a full night’s rest the day before, in expectation of his last test today, but he’s been skimping for almost a week, and one evening isn’t enough to undo the stress of what have been days of exhaustion. In that context it’s no surprise that Ukai falls into a nap at the first available opportunity, and less that he wakes some unmeasured time later, with the sun visibly lower in the sky than when he came in. His waking is slow, a comfortable rise towards consciousness more than an unpleasant jolt of panic, and Ukai stays very still for the first few minutes of it, keeping his eyes shut against the clarity of reality as he steadies himself back into awareness of his body. He’s still across the couch, still sprawled into some variant of the expansive relaxation he fell into on his return; he has one arm angled under his head, now, and there’s a weight over him in addition to the burden of his clothes against his skin. Ukai shifts where he lies, turning his head the other direction as he blinks himself into clarity on the room around him, and then he lifts his arm and looks down towards the rest of the couch.

It’s a blanket over him, a thin one he’s never seen before but that is covering the whole of his body from feet to shoulder; he’s clutched at it in his sleep to pull it in closer. It’s probably the reason he was able to sleep so long undisturbed; the warmth of the extra layer even now is making Ukai feel hazy with comfort, like he might be able to roll  over and fall back asleep for some additional span of time. He rests his head back against the cushion under him, toying with the idea with the kind of idle sincerity that comes with the drowsy comfort of a nap, and it’s as he’s contemplating turning back over that his gaze lands on the table in front of him and the slip of paper folded and set atop it.

Ukai’s curiosity gets the better of him at once. Thoughts of falling back asleep are forgotten, abandoned as quickly as he sees the paper; he’s bracing an elbow against the cushions under him and pushing himself partway to upright instead so he can reach out and catch his fingers against the edge of the note. It’s just a single piece of paper, folded carefully in half over the dark of the words written on it, and even those are brief enough for Ukai to read as soon as he’s pressed the note open along the fold.

 _Congratulations on finishing your midterms! I hope all your hard work paid off in the end._ The writing is tidy, deliberate in each stroke and clear enough to read easily even with the elegance of the handwriting; Ukai doesn’t need Takeda’s signature at the bottom to identify the style even at a glance. He reads the message over twice, lingering over the simple lines as if they’re a confession of something more while he presses his thumb against the signed _Ittetsu_ at the bottom corner of the paper; and then he falls back against the couch, dropping to lie on his back while he lifts an arm to press over his eyes and shadow over his gaze while he huffs a shaky laugh at his own expense.

He knows he’s being absurd, but that doesn’t stop his heart from beating the faster against the barely-there weight of the note he presses to his chest.


	10. Enthusiastic

Ukai has the apartment to himself for the rest of the afternoon. It takes him almost an hour to get up off the couch properly, even after he stirs from his much-needed nap; everything he might do lacks any sufficient pressure to overcome the languid weight of relief and exhaustion in him, and he can’t muster the strength to aim for any kind of productivity under the circumstances. He thinks of turning on the television, of playing a video game or mindlessly watching the glow and sound of one show or another, but the thought is as appealing just to imagine as the reality would be, and in the end it’s only the dull ache of growing physical discomfort that finally rouses Ukai from his sprawl over the couch. He gets to his feet slowly, working his way to upright with careful intention under his motions; the blanket is left on the couch, his phone set to rest unattended at the corner of the coffee table. The only thing Ukai is careful with is the note he’s had pinned between the palm of his hand and the flat of his chest since he stirred into wakefulness; that he takes with him as he gets to his feet, moving forward through the living room and down the hallway so he can set it carefully under a textbook at the corner of his desk before retreating to the shower and the comfort of a long span of time standing in the steam.

He lingers under the spray for what feels like hours, his head ducked forward and his breathing coming slow while the rush of hot water over the back of his neck and across his shoulders soothes the knots of stress from his body with every breath he takes. He thinks of taking the opportunity for physical relief as well, while he has the apartment and the shower to himself, but the idea seems like more effort than it’s worth even in imagination and he ends up shutting off the shower when it starts to run cold without reaching for even the edge of a fantasy. Everything feels lazy, unhurried and comfortable as he moves from one task to the next, until Ukai doesn’t bother with more than ruffling his hair dry and wrapping a towel around his hips before he emerges from the bathroom and comes around the corner in search of a glass of ice water to soothe some of the heat from his skin.

It’s later than he realized, he sees when he’s standing over the sink and downing the second glass of water he ran over a handful of ice cubes. His classes are long since over, those he attended and those he skipped; even the latest discussions must be wrapping up on campus, or will be within the hour if nothing else. Ukai wonders vaguely where Takeda is, if he’ll be working late at the literature department or coming home right away, and he’s just smiling self-deprecation at himself for knowing the details of the other’s schedule so intimately when there’s a buzz of sound from the table and his attention is pulled to where he left his phone when he went into the bathroom.

Ukai’s first thought is worry that he missed a call, that the sound is from a notification repeating itself in hopes of getting his attention after a lapse. But there’s no indicator for a message, neither a text nor a voicemail, when he picks it up, and the number that is displayed just has the name _Takeda_ associated to it. Ukai’s heart picks up its pace, fluttering in his chest as if he’s caught a glimpse of the other’s face instead of just thought of his name, and he’s glad for the glass of ice water in his hand that he can press to his forehead in an attempt to cool his absurd glow of warmth before he clears his throat and answers with as much calm composure as he can find. “Hey.”

“ _Ukai?_ ” Ukai’s never heard Takeda’s voice over the phone before; they exchanged numbers shortly before moving in, just to stay in touch as needed, but everything before their meeting was through text, and since then he’s had no occasion and no reasonable enough excuse to call Takeda himself. The sound is melodic against Ukai’s ear, sweet as if Takeda is murmuring something far weightier than just the familiar sound of the other’s name; Ukai is simultaneously upset that this is the first time he’s hearing Takeda’s voice without the distraction of the other’s face, and grateful for what defenses that absence left to him. He thinks he might have managed to fall in love with this voice alone before they ever met in person. “ _Good afternoon. This is Takeda._ ”

“I know who you are,” Ukai growls around the pull of the grin trying to tug free of his lips. “I don’t have _that_ many people I talk to, doctor.”

Takeda huffs a self-conscious laugh that prickles to static at the phone line and heats against Ukai’s spine. “ _I suppose not. I didn’t wake you, did I?_ ”

“Nah,” Ukai tells him. “I’ve been up for a couple hours.” He glances back at the couch where the tangle of the blanket is still heaped on one end and works his shoulder through a shrug. “Or awake, at least.”

“ _You seem more alert_ ,” Takeda agrees. “ _Did your midterms go well?_ ”

“They’re done,” Ukai says. He leans back to rest his hip against the support of the counter behind him; the heat rippling through his veins is making him feel strained and fidgety, like his whole body is filling up with too-much energy demanding outlet in some form or another. Even the weight of the towel around his hips is clear in his mind, as if Takeda might somehow be able to tell Ukai’s state of undress just from the sound of the other’s voice over the telephone line. “That’s good enough for now, anyway.”

Takeda laughs. “ _That’s true enough_.” There’s a pause just long enough for Ukai to wonder why Takeda is calling at all, for him to wonder if the other is waiting for him to ask, and then Takeda takes a breath audible even over the phone and speaks at once. “ _I actually just finished the last of my projects for the week as well. I wondered if you might want to do something special tonight to celebrate with me. If you don’t have plans with your friends already, of course_.”

Ukai’s shoulders tense, his skin flushes to heat. Takeda’s words are tame enough, no more than a polite invitation on the surface, but Ukai’s almost certain of the tension he’s picking out in the other’s tone, and Takeda’s hesitation suggests some measure of shyness, maybe, stalling out his speech until he has to force himself into action. Maybe it’s just insecurity in Ukai’s preferences, maybe it’s just general nervousness at initiating social interaction that might end with a refusal, but Ukai’s heart is beating faster all the same, picking up speed with the thought that maybe Takeda’s is fluttering with the same dizzy adrenaline that is working its way through the whole of his body.

“No,” Ukai says, and then Takeda catches a breath and he realizes his mistake in answering the last part of the statement and not the main point. “Yes. Me too. I--” and he closes his mouth on the rush of speech to force himself to silence while he tries to collect the fragments of his thoughts to clarity. He shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath, letting it go in a silent sigh before he tries to speak again.

“I don’t have any plans tonight,” Ukai says, speaking slowly to make sure the words come out without any confusion on them at all. “Celebrating sounds great.”

“ _That’s wonderful!_ ” Takeda chirps. “ _I’m just leaving campus now, I could pick up a movie on the way home if you’d like?_ ”

“Sure,” Ukai says. “I’ll order us something for food.”

“ _Great_.” Takeda sounds radiant, like he’s glowing with appreciation for Ukai’s agreement; Ukai can picture the smile the other must be wearing across the whole of his face with no more than the sound of Takeda’s voice to guide him. “ _I’ll be there as soon as I can_.”

“See you soon,” Ukai says, and he lets that stand as his farewell as he draws the phone away to hang up. His heart is racing in spite of himself, hammering in his chest as if he’s just run a mile instead of stood still in his living room to answer a phone call, and he’s sure his cheeks are still flushed with the pleasure of Takeda’s invitation. It’s just a night at home, just a few hours spent in the company of his roommate; there’s nothing inherently flirtatious about it, nothing particularly romantic about delivered pizza and a rented movie. But Ukai is still as shaky with adrenaline as if that lilting voice had asked him on a date, and no matter how much he tries to talk himself out of it he can’t shake the anticipation coiling itself to heat under every part of his skin. He gazes at the screen of his phone for a moment, watching the call duration flash under the display of Takeda’s name; and then he huffs a breath, and turns to move out of the living room and to the safety of his bedroom so he can put some actual clothes on before Takeda arrives.

It takes him almost ten minutes to settle on a shirt to wear, and as long again fiddling with his hair before he huffs a breath and leaves it down, but Takeda comes in the front door as pink as Ukai feels, and Ukai can’t imagine any better welcome than that.


	11. Adrenaline

Takeda comes back with an action movie. It’s not a bad source of entertainment, all things considered -- the plot is a little thin, Ukai supposes, and some of the more improbable stunts are less well-explained than they might be -- but it’s pleasant to watch, with enough happening on the screen to hold Ukai’s attention in most situations. He thinks he wouldn’t mind watching this even if he were alone, even if he’s not sure it would be worth the cost of a movie ticket to go and see in theatres.

Under the present circumstances, he would happy to stay right where he is even if the film proved to be five hours long.

He and Takeda are pressed close together on the couch, nearer even than they sat while they were sharing out the long night of studying a few days ago. They don’t need to -- there are feet more space at either end of the couch that they could spread out into instead of leaning in like they’re trying to occupy the same space -- but the television is a lot smaller than the cushions they’re sitting on, and after beginning the movie with a reasonable amount of distance between them they’ve been taking turns shifting in a little closer with every excuse of getting up for a glass or water or leaning in for a new slice of pizza. By now Ukai’s whole leg is pressing close against Takeda’s, and his hand resting heavy in his lap is near enough that he could reach out and curl his fingers in around the angle of Takeda’s wrist if he wanted, if he dared to make the edges of interest they’re teetering against explicit. Ukai looked at the cuff of Takeda’s dress shirt for nearly five minutes after their latest adjustment, thinking about the inch of pale skin hiding underneath the crisp white of the fabric, thinking about catching his thumb against the button holding the cloth in place and sliding his fingers up to explore what of Takeda’s arm he can press his touch against; and then Takeda had lifted his hand to adjust his glasses, the movement so unthinking it scattered all Ukai’s distracted focus at once, and Ukai had lifted his head to stare fixedly at the television screen, even if he couldn’t bring his attention to focus on the story playing out before him at all.

He hasn’t been able to refocus himself at all since then either. The movie is giving him plenty to look at, fights and gunshots and even the occasional explosion, but while Ukai’s eyes are pinned to the flicker of the television screen his thoughts are drifting sideways, wandering in over the curl of Takeda’s hair and the line of his glasses and the catch of his breathing as he seizes an inhale over a particularly startling blow or the reveal of a secret identity. If Ukai breathes in he imagines he can smell a hint of the shampoo Takeda uses, the scent of it wound into the curls of his hair the way Ukai wants to slide his fingers in to ruffle through their disarray; if he shifts his leg at all he can feel Takeda move in answer, as if accommodating his own position to match Ukai’s. The thought of it is distracting, heady and dizzying until Ukai can barely fight the pace of his breathing to a sedate calm appropriate for the casual interaction they’re meant to be having as roommates watching a movie over a celebratory pizza.

Takeda’s movement is startling as he leans forward to reach for the remote lying at the edge of the table in front of them. Ukai’s shoulders tighten, his head turns at once as his focus to the screen disintegrates like it was never there, and Takeda is getting to his feet, pulling up and away while Ukai’s heart clenches tight on this sudden, unexpected loss.

“Takeda?” Ukai says, sitting up from the illusion of relaxation he’s been sustaining at the support of the couch behind him. He wants to lift his hand to catch at Takeda’s wrist and pull the other back down; he curls his fingers into a fist at his lap to hold back the urge. “You okay?”

Takeda glances back at Ukai and smiles. “Sorry, I just need a bathroom break.” He slips free of the couch and the coffee table, bracing a hand against the arm of the furniture with the deliberate care that comes with years of working around innate clumsiness; it’s only once he’s clear of the edge of the table that he straightens entirely to move towards the hallway. “I’ll be right back.”

Ukai nods agreement. Takeda flashes a smile at him over his shoulder, the bright of it all but glowing in the room lit by no more than the dim of the television screen, and then he turns to vanish down the hall. Ukai stares after him for a moment, his heart beating faster than anything in the movie itself has yet drawn from him, and then he tips himself back against the couch and groans in the back of his throat as he lifts both hands to press against his face.

“Fuck,” he murmurs, softly so the sound won’t carry but with feeling enough to bleed off at least a portion of the tension aching across his shoulders and thrumming through his legs. “He’s gonna kill me.” He pushes his hands up off his face to shove through his hair, rumpling himself into some measure of comfort just via the restless movement before he lets his arm fall out across the back edge of the couch and drops the other to his lap. He keeps gazing up at the ceiling instead of at the television screen; it helps to make him feel a little more removed, like his thoughts might manage some kind of objective distance from the ache of tight-wound want in the whole of his ever-traitorous body.

“Apologies for the delay!” Takeda’s voice is clear and startlingly close; Ukai hadn’t even heard the bathroom door open again. Ukai lifts his head at once to straighten from his slouch back against the support of the couch, but Takeda is already sliding in around the edge of the coffee table, moving with enough speed that Ukai flinches at the close quarters of the maneuver and braces himself for a fall. But Takeda navigates the path with grace, the first example of physical dexterity that Ukai thinks he’s seen from the other, and then he’s dropping to sit at the couch alongside Ukai, just as close as he was before he left. His leg presses tight against the other’s, his shoulder bumps to fit just under the angle of Ukai’s own, and Ukai freezes, his whole body going still as he processes the line of his arm still stretched out over the back of the couch behind Takeda’s shoulders. He glances back, wondering if he should move, wondering how to manage to do so gracefully and without making it seem like he’s flinching back from Takeda’s presence, but if Ukai’s heart is hammering on adrenaline in his chest Takeda seems burdened by no such self-consciousness. He’s leaning forward for a moment to reach for the remote and pressing the button to get the movie started again, and then he’s leaning back at once, relaxing into the support of the couch just underneath the angle of Ukai’s arm stretching around behind him.

“I suppose I could have let it keep playing,” Takeda says, speaking softly enough that it’s only because Ukai is staring at his companion and not the screen that he can pick out the specifics of the words. “I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this chase scene before, at least.”

Ukai shakes his head to offer something like a reply while he swallows and tries to find the form of words for his lips. “It’s fine,” he finally manages. Takeda glances up from the display of the television and Ukai has to look away at once just to maintain some fraction of coherency in the face of those attention-bright eyes and that too-close mouth. “I appreciate the company as much as the movie anyway.”

Takeda hums a soft noise in the back of his throat. Ukai can feel the purr of it as if Takeda has leaned in to breathe a shudder of heat against the curve of his ear. “That’s very kind of you to say,” he says, sounding as gentle as if he’s truly startled by the compliment. “Thank you, Ukai.”

Ukai ducks into a nod without looking away from the television. “Sure,” he says, and then he closes his mouth on anything else he might say and fixes his gaze firmly on the movie before him.

Ukai doesn’t have the nerve to let his arm slide down from the back of the couch to drape around Takeda’s shoulders entirely, but he can feel the weight of the other’s body brushing his shirtsleeve and touching against the forced-slack angle of his wrist. After a few minutes Takeda lets his head tip back against the support behind him so the curl of his hair is against the inside of Ukai’s elbow; it’s at that point that Ukai gives up on following the movie at all and just focuses himself on smoothing his breathing to the most deliberate pace he can manage with his heart beating like a drum against the inside of his chest.

He doesn’t remember any of the movie at all by the time the credits are rolling, but he thinks he’s had more than enough excitement for one night all the same.


	12. Proposition

“And this is the storage room,” Shimada says, stepping through the door at the back of the shopfront and holding it open to gesture expansively at the room around him. “Or it will be, at least, after the first shipment arrives.”

“It’s supposed to show up next week,” Takinoue puts in from where he’s been trailing Ukai as the other is shown on the grand tour of Shimada’s newly-rented space. “Shimada’s promising to pay us for an afternoon to help unload, if you’ve got the time.”

“Sure,” Ukai says, his attention fixed on the space around him rather than on the teasing of Takinoue’s words. “Midterms are done so I should be off the hook for a few weeks at least. It’d be nice to do some work again.”

“Getting tired of books yet?” Takinoue asks.

Ukai huffs a laugh and shakes his head. “Not yet. Ask me again in a few months and we’ll see how it’s going.”

“I’ll hold you to it,” Takinoue promises.

“Hurry up and come in already,” Shimada tells him. “You’re letting all the cold air out.” Takinoue ducks around the edge of the door Shimada has been holding open and Shimada lets the weight of it swing shut to retain the chill of the refrigerated space they’re standing in. There’s not much to see as yet -- the storage room is mostly composed of empty shelves and racks with nothing to fill them -- but it still seems expansive to Ukai, the more so when he thinks about it being all Shimada’s to fill with stock for his new shop.

“This is crazy,” he says without turning around from where he’s standing in the middle of the room and gazing up at the walls around him. “I can’t believe you’re about to go into business proper.”

“That’s what I told him,” Takinoue puts in. He’s looking at Shimada when Ukai looks back at them, his gaze soft even as his mouth curls up on a teasing grin. “You could just keep working for another few years, you know. Save yourself the trouble of worrying about profits and the like for a little longer.”

Shimada shakes his head, smiling towards his feet with the comfort of someone who has heard this argument a dozen times and doesn’t even have to think about rejecting it. “There’s no need to wait,” he says with all the calm certainty that Ukai has always admired in him. “I have the means to do it now. It’s not like waiting another five years will change things much. If there’s business enough for me to make a living here, then I will.”

“You will,” Ukai says. “There’s no other grocery shop within walking distance of all the apartments in this part of town, you’ll be swamped right away.”

“I’ll just have to hire on some part-time employees,” Shimada smiles. “You looking to make a little extra money for your own savings, Takinoue?”

“I can’t leave you to this crazy experiment on your own,” Takinoue tells him. “What kind of a friend would that make me?” Shimada laughs and Ukai grins before they all fall silent again, even their friendly teasing giving way to silent appreciation of the space around them. Ukai’s chest is tight on awe; even moving into his current apartment didn’t make him feel as much of an adult as Shimada looks right now, with his hands clasped before him and his mouth curving onto a smile of quiet pride in his present accomplishment. Ukai wonders what he’ll have to do before he feels like an adult in himself, wonders what step he’ll have to take before he feels himself the true master of his own course. He wonders if Takeda feels like an adult yet, or if he bears the same sense of an actor playing a part instead of bearing the true weight of the role that Ukai feels pressing down against him whenever he thinks of it.

“This calls for a celebration,” Takinoue declares at last, speaking loudly enough to draw both Ukai and Shimada’s attention back to him. He’s leaning against the wall alongside the door, his hands in his pockets and his head tipped back as he considers the space around them; when he lowers his chin it’s to flash his teeth into an conspiratorial grin at the other two. “Unless Shimada is too much of a grown-up now to go out for drinks with his high school friends?”

Shimada’s cheeks color to red as he fights with a smile. “Of course not,” he says. “I’m not giving up on that for anything.”

“Good,” Takinoue declares as he straightens from his lean against the wall and turns his focus to Ukai instead. “And our resident scholar?”

“Shut up,” Ukai growls at him, aiming for a rumble of frustration that he undermines with a grin pulling at the corner of his mouth. “I haven’t changed _that_ much.”

Takinoue grins right back. “Glad to know you’re still yourself,” he says. “Let’s get out of here before we freeze into Shimada’s first refrigerated stock.” He takes the lead out of the backroom and into the front space, presently occupied by shelves and the cash register at the counter; Shimada and Ukai are quick to follow on his heels. It’s not quite cold enough to merit shivering, Ukai thinks, but his skin is definitely starting to prickle with the edge of discomfort, and it’s far more pleasant to linger in the front space where they can lean against the counter and watch passersby on the sidewalk outside hesitate over the sign of the grocery store to come.

“You really _are_ going to be a business success,” Takinoue sighs as he leans in to weight both elbows at the counter and slouch against the support. “Look at all those potential shoppers going past right now.”

“Let’s see how it goes,” Shimada caveats, although his smile says that he appreciates the faith in him in spite of his demurral. “It all depends on whether I can keep my customers happy enough to come back after the first try.”

“You’ll be fine,” Takinoue tells him as he reaches out to elbow Shimada’s arm. “Everyone likes you, you know that.” He looks up at Ukai on his far side without straightening from his lean over the counter. “So what’ll it be? Shall we make our new businessman treat us to drinks tonight?”

“That doesn’t seem fair,” Ukai says. “We should treat _him_ , isn’t that the way a celebration works?”

“I agree with Ukai,” Shimada says immediately. “Treating me sounds like an excellent idea.”

Takinoue huffs. “It was worth a try” he mumbles, but he’s still grinning in spite of his façade of resignation. “Then it’s your responsibility to keep up with everyone else. I hope you’re prepared for that, Shimada.”

“I’ve been practicing with you,” Shimada tells him without batting an eye. “And you know Ukai can’t hold his alcohol.”

“Hey,” Ukai protests, but Takinoue is talking over him without waiting for the obligatory show of a protest to this entirely valid claim.

“Who said it would be just us?” he asks. “This is a big deal you know, we have to have a proper celebration.” Shimada raises his eyebrows in answer to this claim but Takinoue doesn’t appear at all fazed as he straightens to clap a hand heavy at Shimada’s shoulder. “I’ll call up the whole gang from school. It’s a little last minute but I’m sure most of them can make time for at least a few drinks to celebrate our very own Shimada crossing the threshold of adulthood.”

“I don’t think this is what is usually meant by that phrase,” Shimada sighs, but he’s still smiling in spite of his words, and Ukai can see the capitulation clear on the other’s face even as Takinoue laughs and slings an arm around his shoulders.

“It’ll be fun,” he tells him. “You’re giving us an excuse to get together again and catch up, everyone appreciates that.” He looks over to Ukai without letting his hold on Shimada go. “What do you say, Ukai, want to help me pull together the group for the night?”

“Sure,” Ukai says. “It sounds like fun.”

“Good,” Takinoue says, and turns back to Shimada. “Let’s go get some shopping done. Ukai, want to send out the invite?”

“Yeah,” Ukai says, and reaches to pull his phone from his pocket so he can start selecting the numbers to contact. It’s easy to pull out the familiar names from the list of family members and less well-known acquaintances; he’s still listening to Shimada and Takinoue’s banter as he works down the list, grinning over their verbal parries as he puts together the group. He’s nearly at the bottom, scrolling fast through the last few options, when his screen drags over a name and his thumb comes out to catch and pin it still at once.

“We can’t use the storage room,” Shimada is protesting as Ukai stares at the screen of his phone. “Everyone will freeze if we stay in there too long.”

“It’ll keep the beer cold,” Takinoue points out. “Couldn’t we hang out out here and just keep the drinks in there?”

“ _Where_ out here?” Shimada asks. “Sitting on the floor between the shelves?”

“It’s not a _terrible_ \--”

“Hey,” Ukai says, speaking loud to interrupt without looking up from the screen of his phone. The conversation cuts off at once; when Ukai looks up both Shimada and Takinoue have turned to look at him with the full weight of their attention. He can feel his cheeks heat in spite of his best efforts to appear casual, but he swallows hard and pushes on into the best approximation of calm he can manage. “Do you mind if I invite my roommate?”

Shimada blinks at him, his head tipping slightly to the side like he’s taking stock of what Ukai has said, or perhaps like he’s reevaluating some previously fixed point; but Takinoue is speaking at once, and his answer pulls Ukai’s attention away from the flicker of consideration in Shimada’s eyes. “This is the guy who helped with the mattress when you moved in, right?”

“Yeah,” Ukai says. “He’s good company and he doesn’t really have the chance to get out very much.”

“For sure,” Takinoue agrees at once. “We owe him our thanks for the help moving you in anyway, I think you would have gotten yourself crushed under your bed if it weren’t for him.”

“Yeah,” Shimada agrees. When Ukai looks back up to him the other is smiling at him without any suggestion of that brief consideration behind his eyes; there’s just friendly warmth so complete that he wonders if his nerves brought on a measure of unjustified paranoia about his friends’ reaction. “I’d like to get to know him, if you like him.”

“I do,” Ukai says, and then ducks his head to focus himself on the screen of his phone rather than giving the sincerity of his words time to burn a blush across his face. “I’ll see if he’s free.” He hesitates over Takeda’s name, thinking about adding him to the general invitation he’s about to send out; and then passes over it, leaving the box unselected while he finishes going through his contact list. His main message he sends out quickly, just a few sentences to explain the event and offer the open invitation; it’s only then that he goes back to open up a separate message to compose to Takeda alone.

It takes him several minutes longer to craft the invitation to Takeda than it did to send out the general message, but Ukai thinks it’s all worth it for the immediate payoff of _I’d love to join you!_ as vivid with energy even in text as Takeda is in person. He smiles at his phone before he slides it back into his pocket to wait for the rest of the responses, and if Shimada and Takinoue share a knowing glance with each other, he’s too distracted to notice.


	13. Culmination

The night goes better than Ukai could have dreamed it would.

It’s a pleasure to spend time with his friends, of course. Shimada and Takinoue are excellent company at even the worst of times, and a half-dozen friends with something to celebrate and money to burn is about as far from ‘the worst’ Ukai can imagine. It would be a night worth savoring even just as it is, in its initial conception: adding the heady buzz of happiness that Takeda’s presence brings to Ukai’s life is just the crowning glory to a night Ukai can’t fathom getting any better.

Takeda gets along well with everyone. That had been Ukai’s only concern, that being the only newcomer to the group might stifle some of Takeda’s usual friendly energy and leave him adrift; but he comes in smiling and bearing a pack of beer, and that endears him immediately to everyone there. Ukai manages to say hello, and to exchange a few words of introduction to attach names to the faces Takeda hasn’t met yet; but then he gets pulled aside into a heated conversation about Uchizawa’s moving plans, and by the time he looks back around it’s in answer to the spill of that laugh like sunlight filling the room around them. Takeda is sitting at the corner of the table alongside Mori, beaming and nodding flushed agreement to something the other is saying, and however much effect the open beer in his hand may be having on his mood he’s clearly more than enjoying himself. Ukai watches him for a moment, feeling his heart ache with something a little closer to loss than he quite wants to confront; and then Takeda looks up to see him as if Ukai had called his name, and the brilliance of the smile he offers in answer is enough to chase away all the shadows of unwarranted jealousy from Ukai’s thoughts. Ukai smiles in answer, and lifts his own glass in the outline of a toast, and downs the rest of it before going in search of another.

It’s late by the time they disband. Mori leaves early, pleading an early shift at work the next morning; the rest of them continue on into another round, and then another after that, until intoxication has stripped away their attention to time at all and it’s only Shimada falling asleep that finally forces the conclusion to the party. Uchizawa wants to keep going, and Ukai would be happy to linger for the whole of the night in the position he’s taken up just alongside Takeda next to him, but even if Takinoue laughs at the suggestion he’s moving to ease Shimada into a more comfortable position, and the care in his motion makes it clear that the boisterous celebration, at least, is concluded for the night. Uchizawa volunteers to help clean up in exchange for a space on the floor to sleep for the night, and Takeda and Ukai collect their things and bid farewell to the others before retreating to the street to wait for the taxi to carry them home together.

Ukai doesn’t know what he talks about. He’s hazy through all his body, heavy at his shoulders and startled by the shifts of his balance; speech seems to topple from his lips before he can think of it, spilling out to splash into the space around them and echo off the sides of the buildings until he cringes at his too-much volume in the lateness of the hour. But Takeda is watching him, smiling and laughing with dizzy pleasure at everything Ukai says, and Ukai feels himself enraptured by the shine of the other’s lopsided glasses and the soft weight of the smile Takeda turns on him. He goes on speaking, babbling words that must be near-nonsense just for the glow of the response he gets, until it’s only as the taxi is pulling up before them that he realizes the fifteen minutes they were expected to wait have already passed.

They both end up in the back seat. Ukai isn’t quite sure how that happened -- he had intended to take the back out of some kind of chivalry, to leave Takeda free to lay claim to the passenger seat without having to fight for it between them. But by the time he makes it around the far side of the taxi and gets the door open Takeda’s already toppled into the other and is settling himself in the middle of the seat, and when he looks up to beam at Ukai Ukai finds himself moving forward without thinking, drawn into the close quarters by the invitation of Takeda’s eyes even more than the gesture of the other’s hand reaching out to him. He collapses onto the back seat, dizzy and distracted from even this simple task by Takeda’s sudden proximity; Takeda leans forward to give their address to the driver, and Ukai leans back against the support of the seat, and it’s as the taxi is pulling away from the curb that Takeda drops back against the seat next to Ukai, and heaves a sigh as of relief, and tips himself in sideways to lean against Ukai’s shoulder.

It’s not as startling as it should be. There’s no hesitation in the motion, not even an attempt at claiming exhaustion or drowsiness; and yet Takeda’s lack of excuse makes it seem the more reasonable, as if the contact itself is reason enough for him to give in to it. Takeda’s head is pressing to Ukai’s shoulder, his elbow is pinned close to the other’s arm; if Ukai turns his head he could skim his lips across the curl of Takeda’s rumpled hair so close against him. He thinks of doing it, for a moment, in the distant, curious way that comes with the delayed inhibitions of intoxication; but their driver is in the front seat, even if her eyes are fixed on the road rather than their reflection in the mirror, and Ukai’s awareness of their almost-audience is enough to hold him back in place of his missing self-restraint. He keeps his head turned forward instead, without tipping to give in to the temptation of Takeda’s hair so close to him; but he does shift his arm to draw it up and around the slumped-in line of Takeda’s shoulder rather than pinned between them. He’s afraid of moving too quickly and startling Takeda back and aware from the glow of closeness between them, but Takeda just presses in nearer when Ukai’s hand lands at his shoulder, humming something soft and incoherent with pleasure as he turns in against the other, and Ukai tightens his hold on Takeda’s shoulders and turns his head to smile helplessly out the window at the darkness of the world outside.

They arrive too soon. It’s only a few minutes’ drive, Ukai knows, but it feels like no time at all when he has Takeda breathing slow and warm against him and his arm draped with manufactured casualness across the other’s shoulders. He’d be happy to pay double to do another loop of the block, just for the excuse to linger in the delirious warmth that is glowing through every part of him; but the taxi pulls up to the curb before he can think, and Takeda is straightening as quickly to slide free of Ukai’s arm and lean forward to pay. Ukai thinks about protesting for a moment, but he’s too warm to offer any real resistance to anything Takeda wants to do, and he can always make it up by doing an extra grocery run or treating them to takeout next week. He occupies himself in more productive fashion instead, by escaping from the door on his side and coming around to open Takeda’s for him; by the time Ukai is drawing it open Takeda is waving thanks to the driver and turning to slide across the seat and out. He looks up at Ukai as he gets out of the car, beaming his usual sunbright smile, and as Ukai reaches to push the door shut Takeda steps in close against him and lifts his arm to loop around the other’s waist.

Ukai only hesitates for a moment. Takeda is closer than he’s ever been before, voluntarily offering the glow of his body against Ukai’s own; but Ukai feels the contact like relief, as the nearness they found in the taxi continues even after leaving it, and he’s not going to complain. He lifts his arm again to answer Takeda’s touch in kind, and Takeda ducks forward to clear the inside of Ukai’s elbow before he tips in to press hard against the other as he steers them towards the stairs to their apartment.

“Thank you for inviting me,” Takeda says, his voice clear in spite of the unsteady pace of their footing, whether from clumsiness or nerves or intoxication, Ukai can’t make a guess as to which. They pause at the foot of the stairs, lining themselves up as Ukai reaches to brace a hand at the railing before they begin the careful ascent. “I had an excellent time.”

Ukai glances down at Takeda next to him and directly into the turned-up focus of the other’s eyes. He can only meet them for a moment before he has to duck his head and look away, his cheeks darkening with such heat he’s sure it must be visible even in the dim lighting of the quarter-moon at the horizon. “Sure thing,” he says, his voice rough in his throat as they clear the landing and turn to take on the last handful of steps to their apartment. “It was really fun to have you there. I’m glad you came.” He huffs a faint, self-deprecating laugh and reaches to grab at the railing again as they make it to the top of the stairs. “I’ll be embarrassed about getting drunk in front of you in the morning, but I’m glad you came.”

Takeda laughs. “You don’t need to be embarrassed,” he says, his voice humming with all the sincere warmth that he brings to every conversation they have, regardless of how much alcohol he’s had to drink. His arm around Ukai tightens, his head tips in to brush against the other’s shoulder. “I always think you’re--”

Ukai can feel the motion of Takeda tripping as if it’s his own foot that catches against the top of the stair, as if it’s his own balance that goes careening forward towards the cement in front of them. His hold on Takeda is too solid to let go at the jolting impulse, and with his arm around the other’s waist it’s only instinct for Takeda to clutch at him in an instinctive attempt to save himself. On his own Ukai thinks Takeda might have slipped and tumbled down at least a handful of stairs, if not running up all the way against the landing halfway down; with Ukai to counterbalance him they just skid over one, Ukai’s hold on the railing taking the worst of the impact before his grip gives way and he throws his hand out to catch his weight on his palm instead. Takeda’s grabbed for him, his balance twisted around by his hold at Ukai’s waist and the fist of the other’s shirt he managed to catch; when they land his shoulders hit hard enough at the edge of the top stair to knock the breath from him in a gasp of shock to match Ukai’s wordless yelp of adrenaline.

“Sorry,” Takeda pants against Ukai’s shoulder. “I--”

“Tripped,” Ukai finishes for him, and huffs a breath that goes shaky on a laugh. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Are you okay?” He pushes against his hand at the pavement and turns his head to look to Takeda.

Takeda’s fallen on his back across the stairs, his face turned up towards the faint illumination of the sky overhead and Ukai tipped in over him. His knee is digging hard against Ukai’s shin and his hands are curled to fists against the other’s shirt, but they’re stable enough as they are to keep from sliding farther down the steps. When Takeda lifts his gaze to meet Ukai’s the moonlight slides past his glasses to catch bright amusement into the dark of his eyes as he dimples into a smile.

“I’m fine,” he says. “I’m sorry to have pulled you down with me.”

Ukai shakes his head. “I don’t mind,” he says. “I’m glad I caught you.”

Takeda smiles up at Ukai, the expression breaking bright over his whole face, and Ukai knows he should push away, should struggle to his feet and help Takeda up and get them in the front door of their apartment. But Takeda’s hands are still clinging to his shirt, his hold still tight from the first surge of panic as they fell, and Ukai’s body seems to have forgotten how to move somewhere in the tumble they took down against the stairs. The tension at Takeda’s mouth eases, the creases at the corners of his eyes soften and melt; but it’s not a frown that forms itself on his lips, and the dark of his gaze isn’t flinching away from Ukai. They’re just staring at each other, their breathing coming fast and closer than they should be, closer than is reasonable; even when Takeda’s hold at Ukai’s shirt starts to loosen Ukai can’t make himself pull away, can’t force himself to lay hold of the opportunity to retreat. He stays still instead, as pinned in place as if Takeda were the one bending over him instead of the other way around; and then Takeda’s hand slides up over his shoulder and into the fall of his hair, and Takeda’s lashes flutter shut over his eyes, and Takeda arches up to press his mouth directly against the part of Ukai’s lips.

Ukai doesn’t think at all, for the first moment. Takeda’s mouth is against his, Takeda’s lips are warm and close at his own; it’s instinct that dips his lashes, that casts his vision aside as unimportant while his shoulders tip forward in obedience to the hand pressing at the back of his head. Ukai leans in, the support of his arm giving way entirely rather than pushing him up and back; his knee slides against the stairs to catch his weight as his steadying hold on Takeda tightens to pull the other in closer against him. Takeda makes a sound against Ukai’s lips, something soft and warm and pleased, and then his mouth is opening and Ukai is pressing forward without thinking about that either, his head tipping to the side to align their mouths as he urges forward to taste against the heat radiating from Takeda’s parted lips. Takeda whimpers at the press of Ukai’s tongue, his mouth opens wider, and Ukai is urging closer still, giving up his hold on the cement entirely so he can push his fingers into Takeda’s hair to match the grip the other is curling onto the fall of his own. Takeda groans at the contact and arches up under Ukai, his whole body curving to meet the weight of the other’s; with how close they are Ukai can feel the flex of tension in Takeda’s thigh against his own, can feel the rhythm of Takeda’s heart pounding flush against his chest. He feels dizzy, lost somewhere in the space between dark hair curling around his fingers and an arm clinging tight across his back and soft lips and wet heat and desperate friction, until when the contact gives way to the pant of breathing for a moment it’s hard for Ukai to even realize what’s happened, harder still for him to go through the motion of opening his eyes and fighting his way back to clarity.

“Takeda,” Ukai hears himself say, his voice dragging as if he’s fighting it free from some impossible tension; he closes his mouth on the heat burning at his lips, the sweet clinging to his tongue, the want choking in his throat, and he swallows hard as he opens his eyes to try to pull himself back into clarity. “I’m. You.”

“Ukai,” Takeda says; except it doesn’t sound like Takeda, not with the weight on the words, not with the feel of them purring so deep down in the other’s chest that Ukai can feel them vibrating the whole length of his spine. Ukai blinks hard and shakes his head to clear it, but his focus refuses to take in the whole of Takeda before him: he keeps catching pieces instead, half-lidded eyes and parted lips and the race of a heartbeat fluttering hard in the other’s throat just over the loose neckline of his shirt. The fingers in Ukai’s hair urge up, ruffling the heavy weight of the locks as if to steady themselves in place, and Takeda’s lashes dip and flutter like he’s fighting to keep his eyes open. His head tips, his lips part. “Please.”

“We’re outside,” Ukai says, even though it’s hard to remember the fact of that, even though the whole of his awareness is narrowing to the arch of Takeda’s back, the shift of his legs, the weight of his touch. “The apartment, we should--” and Takeda drags at his hair and he’s toppling forward, falling back into a kiss that Takeda answers with a groan stifled to vibration against the weight of Ukai’s lips. Takeda licks against Ukai’s mouth, urging past the other’s lips and in over his tongue before he draws back to press an array of kisses over Ukai’s mouth like he’s mapping out the shape by touch instead of by sight; Ukai makes some noise against Takeda that sounds like a whine and feels like an ache down in his chest before he gasps an inhale and tries again, speaking between the friction of Takeda’s scattered kisses. “Inside, let’s--let’s go inside.”

“Yes,” Takeda says, as readily as if he is truly going to follow Ukai’s guidance in this, but he follows up the statement with a pull against Ukai’s hair and a kiss hard enough to force all coherent thought from the other’s mind. Ukai’s grip on Takeda’s back pulls, Takeda’s arm tightens around Ukai’s waist, and when they break apart again it takes a long moment of dizziness before Ukai can recover his scattered train of thought.

“Okay,” he grates out, sounding approximately as shattered as he feels, and then he musters all his will at once and lifts his head to look up and away from Takeda beneath him. They’re sprawled over the top few stairs leading up to their apartment, Takeda tipped back so his shoulders are pressing to the landing and Ukai’s arm bracing hard next to him. It takes Ukai a moment to orient himself enough to find their apartment, the shut door a few steps away and promising privacy if they can get it open and inside. It’s that thought that gives him the focus to brace against his arm and push himself up and off Takeda underneath him, and even then Takeda turns in to follow, urged towards upright by his grip on Ukai’s shoulders as much as the arm wrapping around his back.

“Inside,” Ukai repeats, struggling to keep his focus fixed as Takeda shifts beneath him, as the hand in his hair slides down and away in the outline of a caress even as Takeda is trying to brace a hand at the stair beneath them to push himself up. Ukai bruises his knee on the stair beneath him in the effort of getting his foot braced at a step, and then he pushes hard to fumble towards the idea of standing if not a very compelling execution of such. Takeda moves under him as Ukai’s grip gives way at last, turning to half-fall onto the stairs with enough force that Ukai worries he’ll slide back again and is reaching to brace him steady, but speed overcomes the effect of clumsiness and carries him up over the topmost stair while Ukai is still reaching to extend the offer of support. It’s Takeda who catches his footing at the landing and stumbles forward towards their apartment, moving with all the speed of impatient want, and Ukai is left to take the last pair of steps in a single stride and follow in Takeda’s wake.

He catches up to him at the door, just as Takeda is giving up pulling at the locked door and reaching for his pocket. “I need my keys,” he says, turning to look back as Ukai comes forward. “Ukai, do you--”

“I’ve got it,” Ukai says. His hand is in his pocket, he’s reaching for the weight of the keys he dropped there when they left long hours before, but even as he draws them free Takeda is sighing a breath of relief and reaching up for him again. Takeda’s arm winds around Ukai’s shoulders, bracing steady as the other comes up onto his toes, and Ukai’s focus gives way as he tips forward to stumble them into the support of the door. His arm catches around Takeda’s waist, he’s turning in to follow the suggestion of Takeda’s mouth, and as he struggles one-handed with his keys Takeda’s fingers are back in his hair and urging him back down into another kiss. There’s something dizzying about it, the surrender of Takeda’s mouth and the demand of his fingers at once, as if Ukai is being guided into accepting the invitation the other is making of himself, urged into a having he’s been craving for weeks. He groans against Takeda’s lips, voicing the too-much pleasure of contact in exchange for the pant of the other’s breathing coming with such force against him, and then the key in his hand catches against the lock of the door and Ukai twists hard to undo the latch. Takeda turns his head without easing his grip on Ukai’s hair, looking to track the motion of the other’s hand, and Ukai grabs at the handle and twists to push the door open and let them both topple into the familiar shadows inside.

Takeda stumbles backwards, almost losing his balance at the sudden motion as Ukai steps forward to bear them both past the entrance, but his grip around Ukai’s shoulders keeps him upright, and Ukai is occupied in dragging his key free of the lock so he can push the door shut behind them again. The door slams into place against its frame, he shoves at the lock to bring the deadbolt home, and then Takeda steps in to push Ukai backwards and Ukai’s focus on the door gives way at the same time his hold on his keys slides loose to drop them to the floor in a clatter of metal.

“Ukai,” Takeda breathes, his voice sounding lower and hotter than it ever has before. His knee comes forward to fit between Ukai’s, his weight presses in to urge his chest flush against the other’s, and Ukai loses his balance to fall back against the support of the door at his back. His shoulders press to the flat of the surface, the resistance enough to keep him upright even with the burden of Takeda pressing close against him, but Ukai’s focus isn’t on the stability of his footing; he’s reaching out instead, resettling his hold around Takeda’s waist and fitting a hand into Takeda’s hair to urge the other back in towards him. Takeda gives way at once, submitting without hesitation to the forward pull of Ukai’s hands, and when Ukai ducks in to kiss him again Takeda shudders satisfaction against his mouth and goes liquid and graceful in the press of his body to Ukai’s. They’re pinned close together, shoulders and hips and legs all held near by the strength of both their holds on each other, and Ukai is just realizing the proximity of Takeda’s leg between his to the front of his jeans when Takeda’s hand at the back of his neck tightens, and Takeda’s hips rock forward with reflexive elegance, and the surge of friction between them flares white-bright through Ukai’s vision for a brief moment of incoherence.

“ _Oh_ ” he gasps, his voice breaking over the rush of sensation sweeping itself out into his veins; but his hands are acting of their own accord, clutching against Takeda’s hair and pushing up at the fall of his shirt to struggle for proximity, for contact, for the weight of fingers against skin and pressure against their bodies. Ukai’s fingers find the edge of Takeda’s pants, his palm catches at the dip of the other’s back, and when he pulls the action comes in time with Takeda pressing forward against him again, falling into movement that gains heat as it sets a rhythm for the shift of their bodies together. Takeda’s head comes forward in surrender to the weight of Ukai’s hand, his forehead presses close to the other’s shoulder, and when his fingers flex in Ukai’s hair it’s a brace and a caress at once, a grounding point for himself as his whole body goes warm with startling grace as he fits himself into a arc against Ukai that matches itself to the speeding rush of the other’s breathing rasping in his chest.

Ukai can’t think, can’t move, can hardly breathe. His face is hot, his skin burning as if with a self-conscious blush that has spread itself over the entirety of his body; Takeda’s thigh is pressing tight between his own, so near he must be able to feel how hard Ukai is against him, must be feeling the throb of heat in the other’s cock surging in answer to every movement he takes. But Takeda’s just as hard, Ukai realizes from somewhere amidst the surge of sensation that is cresting over him and stripping focus and coherency from his thoughts: there’s heat pressing against Ukai’s thigh, the strain of Takeda’s desire clear against him even without the desperate heat of the other’s breathing or the clutch of his fingers to give him away. Takeda is pinning Ukai back against the door, grinding against the other with a force made helpless by want, and the reality of that is too much for Ukai to process, too much for him to take in. He gasps a breath, striving to fill his lungs with some measure of air instead of the raw heat that seems to have so gripped him, and when his hand slides at Takeda’s back it’s to fumble under the weight of fabric in pursuit of bare skin. Takeda arches against him, his shoulders flexing like he’s trying to pull Ukai impossibly tighter to him, and Ukai’s thumb catches under cloth to land against the bare skin at Takeda’s hip. Takeda makes a sound in the back of his throat, the heat of it sweeping to desperate height as his fingers clench, as his lips part, and Ukai slides his hand up to spread his fingers wide over Takeda’s back and hold the other in against him. He can feel Takeda’s breathing flexing under his hold, can feel the strain in the other’s body trembling under his palm, and he lets his grip on the other’s hair go to reach down instead and hold against Takeda’s thigh to drag the other in closer against the resistance of his body. Takeda shudders against him, his arm flexing to hold himself up as his weight rocks up onto the precarious balance of his toes, and Ukai braces his foot at the floor and steadies himself into unmoving resistance before he pulls to urge Takeda up and against the friction of Ukai’s thigh pinned between his own.

It’s an awkward angle. Ukai’s hands are occupied in pressing Takeda in against him and bracing the other’s balance as they grind against each other; he’s panting for breath, his legs trembling with the strain of taking their combined weight and his heart hammering over the vertigo of intoxication and arousal too inextricably tangled to be separated. Takeda has one arm looped around the back of Ukai’s neck and another fisting to a hold at the back of his shirt; with his face ducked down to pant for air at the other’s shoulder Ukai can’t even turn his head in for a kiss, can’t reach to catch the sound of the other’s breathless moans against his tongue. But he can feel Takeda’s thighs tensing against the support of his own, can feel the strain in the other’s back building under the press of his hand, until even the ache of his own desire is forgotten in his pursuit of Takeda’s, in the single-minded focus on urging that strain to the breaking point, on drawing those whimpered exhales open into a moan. Takeda’s head is tipped sideways, the line of his glasses caught between his hair and the front of Ukai’s shirt, but Ukai can feel the heat of every exhale gust over his skin and the soft of Takeda’s hair catching against the line of his neck with every breath he takes. He’s pulling Takeda in against him, working them both into the desperate rhythm of instinct, of reflex allowed to seek out its own fulfillment, and against his shoulder Takeda gasps a full-throated inhale and clutches at Ukai’s hair.

“Ukai,” he pants, his voice breaking open against faultlines of want, against the same desire quivering in his thighs and flexing at his back. His head turns up, his parted lips press to Ukai’s skin; it’s not quite a kiss, without the focus to give the contact shape, but Ukai can feel the burn of it run through the whole of his body, is turning in to answer it as if iron drawn to a magnet. His mouth brushes Takeda’s, Takeda gasps for a breath. “I--I’m--” and Ukai’s hands pull, and Takeda’s lips come open on the slack weight of pleasure.

“ _Oh_ ” his voice breaks, his breathing spills, and Ukai groans something rough and wordless in his throat as Takeda shudders into the helpless strain of orgasm against the support of his body. The fingers in Ukai’s hair tighten and ease, Takeda gasps against Ukai’s mouth, and Ukai feels his whole body glowing with heat, with the impossible, dizzy awareness of the power in his hands, of the weight of the touch that just urged Takeda into pleasure. Takeda goes slack against the support of Ukai’s body, his hold desperate in spite of the tremors of aftershocks Ukai can feel running through him, and for a moment they’re still like that, with Ukai’s shoulders weighting hard at the door behind him and Takeda pressing against his chest like he can’t think to hold himself up. Ukai’s heart is pounding in his chest, his thoughts are whirling on disbelief and desire at once, and it’s while he’s still trying to fit his thoughts into the structure of the world in which he’s found himself that Takeda’s shoulders flex and the other shifts to slide back away from the support of Ukai under him.

“Ah,” Ukai blurts, reaching to regain his hold as Takeda pulls away from him. “Takeda, wait--” and then there are hands in his hair, fumbling into a hold as quickly as they touch, and Ukai’s words cut off against the press of lips fitting close against his. Ukai’s eyes shut, his hands fall to land feather-light at Takeda’s hips, and against his mouth Takeda hums a sound a little bit of a laugh and mostly a purr before he draws back with a gasp.

“Thank you,” he says, his words ringing with sincerity. Ukai opens his eyes and tries to clarify his vision of Takeda before him; it’s hard to pick out the details of the other’s expression from the shadows, but the flicker of his smile is unmistakable. Takeda’s fingers stroke through Ukai’s hair and down the curve of the other’s neck before dropping over his shirt, sliding along his chest and down with unselfconscious attention to the resistance of the other’s body. Takeda takes a breath deep enough that Ukai can hear the anticipation on it. “It’s my turn now.” Ukai blinks, too heat-struck and overwhelmed to make sense of the words, and then Takeda’s hand pushes down, Takeda’s palm presses flush to pin Ukai’s jeans close against his hips, and Ukai is groaning with startled force as his body jerks forward to press his cock against the weight of Takeda’s palm. It’s more than he would have offered if he had more self-control, he can feel himself flushing with embarrassment even as his body reacts on pure instinct, but Takeda’s teeth flash on another smile, and when he huffs an exhale it comes out warm on evident pleasure.

“You feel so good,” he breathes, his tone shadowed into heat that runs through Ukai with no chance at all to brace himself against the force. Takeda’s head ducks down, his fingers tighten in to press against the resistance of Ukai’s cock. “I knew you would.” That’s enough to knock the air from Ukai’s lungs on the force of pure shock as too many possibilities present themselves to his imagination all at once, but Takeda isn’t waiting for him to catch his breath; his free hand is tightening at the back of Ukai’s neck, his shoulders are tipping in to urge the other back, and his palm against Ukai’s jeans is sliding up to free his fingers to work over the button of the other’s pants. Ukai seizes an inhale that jumps into the overwrought heights of a whimper even as he claims it, his hands clutch with something like panic against Takeda’s hips, but there’s no time to react: whatever clumsiness Takeda may have on his own feet has no bearing at all on the grace of his fingers, it would seem. Ukai’s fly is coming open at once, almost at the same time Takeda thumbs the button of his jeans loose, and while Ukai is catching a breath against the surge of self-consciousness that hits him at this sudden release of tension Takeda is sucking in a breath at his shoulder, and sliding his hand away from Ukai’s neck, and dropping away from the other’s hold so suddenly it takes Ukai a moment to realize that Takeda’s knees are hitting the floor, that his own outstretched hands are skimming dark hair instead of narrow hips.

Ukai takes a sharp breath, filling his lungs with the intention to speak, but language fails him, as it so often seems to with Takeda, and in the breathless silence of his lost coherency Takeda is everywhere, a hand urging under Ukai’s shirt to hold at his hip and his fingers pushing up to tug at the elastic of Ukai’s boxers revealed by his unbuttoned jeans. Ukai hardly has a chance to realize what the other is doing before the fabric is drawing down and off him, urged off his hips and along his thighs by Takeda’s ready fingers, and as he’s still staring shock down at what he can see of the other Takeda is sighing an exhale that sounds for all the world like relief.

“Ukai,” he says, his voice turning the other’s name into the sound of a prayer on his tongue. His fingers come up from the weight of the other’s clothes to land at bare skin, to trace along the line of Ukai’s hip and down to the solid weight of his cock standing stiff with desire from the dark hair curling around its base. Takeda’s head tips up, his eyes catching a glimmer of light even behind the cover of his glasses as he gazes up at Ukai’s disbelieving stare. “I’ve been wanting to do this for _ages_.” And his fingers curl around Ukai’s shaft, his lips part over damp heat, and Ukai chokes on an inhale that inverts itself into a full-throated moan as Takeda takes the heat of his cock back into the wanting pull of his mouth.

Takeda is better at this than he has any right to be. Ukai doesn’t have space in his thoughts to collect the details of this moment for later consideration, doesn’t have a chance to lay his own imagination atop his present experience to compare details and determine how accurate his own fantasies have proven; it’s all he can do to keep to his feet at all, as his awareness of trivial details like balance and physical strength melt and haze out-of-focus under the heat of Takeda’s mouth against him. There’s a hand at his hip, fingers curling in to hold tight against the angle of bone close under skin; the pressure is more guiding than steadying, but it’s the best thing Ukai has to go on as his thighs tremble and his shoulders drop back to slump heavy at the support of the door behind him. He can’t catch his breath, can’t close his mouth, can make no effort at all to so much as press his lips closed against the groans Takeda is working from him with each forward dip and lingering slide back; when his hands land into Takeda’s hair it’s with the open sprawl of heat under his fingertips more than an urging for something different, it’s with his wrists trembling on slack weight that can’t seem to even hold his hands out into open space when they’re being called by the curl of Takeda’s hair under his touch. Takeda’s lips are pressing close against Ukai, drawing friction out along the whole of the other’s length with every action of his head and every shift of his mouth; there’s no hesitation in his motion, no pause even to catch a breath or ease the tension against his jaw. His tongue is working too, drawing up to lick at the underside of Ukai’s cock and slide wet over the head like Takeda means to urge the other’s orgasm from him personally, as if he’s pleading wordlessly for the heat of Ukai’s pleasure to fill the inside of his mouth. And the vibration, the hum of some muffled sound at the back of his throat: Ukai can feel the shiver of that running straight through those lips pressing close against him, spilling across that tongue to offer another surge of friction, rippling up over him with every forward motion Takeda takes to pull Ukai’s cock in to fill the whole of his mouth. Ukai’s rasping over his breathing, his head canted back against the wall and his eyes staring blankly out into the darkness before him as Takeda works over him, and then Takeda draws a deep breath through his nose and Ukai’s attention is pulled down by the lure of the sound.

It’s hard to see Takeda’s features. The apartment is filled with shadows, darker even than the moon-silvered outlines of the world on the far side of their door; Ukai can only barely make out the shape of Takeda’s glasses from under the tumble of his dark curls, can’t tell the tan of his skin from the pale of Takeda’s in the barely-there lighting. But he can see the contrasts, the shadow of Takeda’s lashes at his skin and the shape of his mouth open to fit itself against the slick heat of Ukai’s cock, and it’s as Ukai is looking down that Takeda draws his hand away from where he’s been steadying Ukai’s length and slides up instead to brace his palm over the other’s hips, just between the aching length of his cock and the indentation of his navel. Takeda’s fingers flex, his palm presses close against Ukai to hold him still, and then he presses forward at once, his tongue shifting over Ukai as he takes the other back into his mouth. Lips catch, Takeda’s tongue slides heat against Ukai’s length to urge him back, and Ukai watches Takeda’s lips slide impossibly far down the length of his cock as he feels himself dip in and over the back of the other’s tongue. It’s too much, the heat and the depth and the friction, Ukai is sure Takeda can’t possibly -- and Takeda’s throat works, shifting hard enough that Ukai can hear the motion, and he presses forward to touch his lips to the dark curls at the base of Ukai’s cock as the other’s length slides down against the pressure of his throat. Ukai’s thighs stutter with strain, his whole body seizes tight on the clarity of the moment: Takeda’s lips against him, Takeda’s tongue flush along his shaft, Takeda’s throat working reflexively against the head of his cock; and he groans a helpless sound and tightens his fingers into Takeda’s hair to urge the other back and away.

“Fuck,” Ukai hears himself saying, the words thrumming in his throat but his voice unrecognizable, dark and rasping on heat he can’t resist. “Takeda, I’m gonna...I’m gonna come, you have to--” but he can’t speak, he can’t struggle coherency free from the pressure knotting in his stomach and sweeping up his spine with unbearable certainty. Takeda lingers for another moment, pressing so close Ukai wonders for a heartbeat if he’s not going to come right down the other’s throat, his orgasm coaxed from him by the instinctive flex of Takeda’s body trying to find air for itself; and then Takeda pulls back, drawing away by an inch to replace the tension of his throat with the press of his tongue. Takeda’s lips tighten against Ukai’s length, his cheeks hollow as he sucks pressure in time with the drag of his tongue just under the head of Ukai’s cock, and Ukai jerks against the wall and comes, spilling heat to flood Takeda’s mouth with his pleasure. Takeda hums at the back of his throat, audibly satisfied even to Ukai’s orgasm-hazed attention, and he keeps working over the other’s length, shifting his mouth and licking against flushed skin until he’s coaxed the last of the aftershocks free of the other’s body. It’s only when Ukai’s hands have gone slack in Takeda’s hair and he’s slumped against the wall, held up as much by the support of that hand at his hip and the palm against his stomach as anything else, that Takeda finally slides back to let Ukai draw free of his mouth. He ducks his head forward and lifts his hand from Ukai’s hip to his mouth instead, his throat working as he swallows hard, and Ukai’s knees finally give up what strength desire granted them and buckle to slide him down the wall at his back and to the floor.

He lands harder than he intended, although he doesn’t feel the impact as anything distinct from the haze of pleasure that has swamped all his attention and left him dizzy and lightheaded. His hands are still in Takeda’s hair; with Takeda on his knees and Ukai sitting flat on the floor his arms are weighting against the other’s shoulders, his hands framing Takeda’s face in front of him. Takeda lifts his head to meet Ukai’s gaze, his lashes lifting to let the glimmer of moonlight catch at the shadow of his eyes; his hand is still pressing to his lips but Ukai can see the bright of the other’s smile glowing in his gaze even in the dim lighting. Ukai stares at him for a moment, breathless and dizzy and as lost for words as he is for a reasonable explanation of what’s just happened; and then Takeda drops his hand from his mouth to his lap and beams at Ukai sitting against the door in front of him, and Ukai can feel the warmth of that one smile hit like a blow against his chest to radiate out into aching affection in the whole of his body. His breath catches, his throat tightens; and before him Takeda’s lashes flutter, Takeda’s head dips.

“Ukai?” It’s not an apology, not quite a question; Takeda’s voice is still thrumming with satisfaction, but there’s not-quite a quaver underneath, as he gazes through the shadows between them at Ukai sitting in front of him. Ukai can see Takeda’s throat work, can see hesitation forming itself into the other’s shoulders; and he does the only thing he can do, and he lifts his fingers to catch at the back of Takeda’s head as he pulls himself to lean forward. It takes some effort, for a body that feels as drained by pleasure as if Takeda were truly drawing free Ukai’s strength itself with the work of his mouth; but Takeda’s close enough, and his lashes are dipping in expectation, and that’s enough to pull Ukai in over the distance between them to press his mouth hard against the salt-damp part of Takeda’s lips before him.

Takeda’s breathing at least as hard as Ukai is, their hearts fluttering on adrenaline and pleasure in equal parts, but his hand comes up to Ukai’s hair at once, and neither of them move to pull away from the friction of their mouths against each other.


	14. Perspective

It’s the headache that wakes Ukai.

It’s a bad one, thudding dully against his temples in an offset rhythm to the beating of his heart in his chest. Even with his face pressing down into the soft underneath him, he can’t do more than ease the worst edge of it. His whole body is aching, stiff and sore as if he took on a too-aggressive workout the day before; when he shifts he finds the effort of it tightens the vise around his head and drags the air from his lungs in a groan of pain. He squeezes his eyes shut, grimacing as he slowly lifts a hand to press to the side of his head; only after applying the gentle pressure that seems to ease some of the hurt does Ukai brace himself to go to the effort of actually lifting his head from the support he’s lying on.

He’s sprawled across the couch in the living room, caught full in a glow of midmorning sunlight that stings his eyes to tears and beats harder against his head in spite of his efforts to contain the pain to a manageable level. For a moment Ukai can’t even think to wonder how he got here; it’s enough to flinch away from the light, to duck into the curtain of shadow offered by his loose hair and turn his shoulders to the window while he thinks through the effort needed to move. His shoulders are distantly sore, vaguely pained as if with a bruise, and the palm of one hand is stinging even as he pushes hard against the throb of pain at his temple, but mostly it’s his legs that are protesting his movement, tensing and aching with every motion as if they’ve spent the whole of the night cramping unobserved. Ukai twists against the couch, struggling himself into motion to lie on his back over the cushions so he can attempt the process of opening his eyes once again; it’s only once he has his gaze recovered and fixed with careful intent on the ceiling overhead that he takes a breath and takes stock of his present situation.

His whole body aches. He’s still wearing jeans and the same t-shirt he had on yesterday; both are clinging to his skin, held there by sleep-sweat and pressing lines of seams into his hip or ankle. There’s the headache, certainly, and the quivering tension in his legs, and a dull hurt across his shoulders as if the aftereffect of some too-much force; when Ukai sets his jaw and lifts his hand away from his head to consider the hurt over his palm he finds the skin scraped raw and red, bruised in a line across his hand and torn to scabbed-over scratches in a mismatched pattern against his wrist and the top edge of his hand. He frowns at them, his attention holding to the dull throb of hurt in spite of himself as he reaches to pull at the waistband of his jeans to resettle them to a more comfortable position. His fingers catch to a hold, the denim shifts; it’s only as the pull slides with strange tension that Ukai lifts his head to look down and sees the fly left unzipped under the shine of the button. He stares at it for a moment. It’s a minor oversight, though he wonders how long it’s been down, whether he embarrassed himself in front of Takeda last night at the -- and then his eyes go wide and his headache vanishes from his attention as memory finally urges itself into his focus and sweeps out to eclipse the hangover-ache of a few too many beers the night before.

They were at a party. Ukai remembers that as soon as he thinks of it, remembers laughter and conversation and the clink of cans tapping toasts against each other, to Shimada at first and then just to life and friendship itself, by the end of the night. Takeda too, of course, appearing at Ukai’s invitation and with cheer enough to make friends with everyone he spoke to: and Takeda draws up a whole host of other memories with him, shadowed and hot and impossible to believe, impossible to credit, even as Ukai stares blankly at his unzipped pants and the scratches all across his palm. He must have hurt his hand in their fall on the stairs, in taking the impact of their landing with too much intoxication in him to feel the pain that followed it. The hurt in his shoulders, too, must be from that collapse that left him leaning in over Takeda on the stairs, pressing close against the shape of the other’s body beneath his. But the rest of it: the desperate fit of their mouths together, fumbling against the door of the apartment, the grip of hands and the gasp of breathing and the feel of Takeda coming against him; it’s all too much, even as Ukai’s memory offers up detail after detail with too much certainty for him to ignore them. He can remember the sound of Takeda’s voice breaking at his shoulder, can recall the weight of Takeda’s hand palming in against him to unfasten these same jeans he’s wearing now; he can remember the feel of Takeda’s lips, and the shift of his tongue, and -- and Ukai sits up so suddenly that the pain of the motion thrumming in his headache knocks aside all other concerns for a moment to double him over his knees as he hisses through the pain brought on by the movement and his realization at once.

He kissed Takeda. Takeda kissed _him_ , and Ukai had responded with instinctive speed, and they had barely made it in the front door before fumbling into as much closeness as they could manage without stripping free of the complexities of their clothes. Ukai’s face goes hot at the memory, at the aftertaste of moans on his lips, at the recollection of clutching at Takeda’s hair and gasping over Takeda’s name; but Takeda was no more restrained, as he draws free details from his memory, Takeda had pressed himself to Ukai’s chest and urged in against the other’s thigh with force enough that Ukai isn’t sure, even in the sober light of morning, that he wouldn’t have been able to get himself off all alone just by grinding against the resistance Ukai was offering him. It’s impossible for Ukai to hold in his head as reality, impossible to give credence to the distracting details of reality laid over something so entirely in the shape of one of his late-night fantasies; but here he is, sprawled over the couch where he must have ended up when exhaustion finally eclipsed the warmth of satisfied desire in his veins, his legs shaky on strain he didn’t feel for the heat last night and his clothes still rumpled into the disarray Takeda’s hands urged from him. Ukai stares at the weight of his pants over his aching legs, his scraped palm turned up in his lap as if to serve as some kind of immediate proof of the events that he can’t make himself trust in even with proof to supplement his memories; and it’s just as he’s in the process of convincing himself everything has been an impossible hallucination, or maybe that he’s stumbled into an alternate reality at some point over the span of the night, that there’s the sound of a door opening, and Ukai’s head jerks up with more of that reckless haste.

He looks towards Takeda’s door first. From his position on the couch he can see most of the way down the short hallway; he’ll see the shift of shadow as the door opens as a warning before Takeda steps out and into view, if nothing else. But the sound’s closer than that, rather than around the corner, and Ukai’s headache-slowed thoughts are just gaining traction on that fact when he realizes it’s the bathroom door swinging open, in full view of his present position. His shoulders tense on self-consciousness before he can stop himself, his head comes up as if in expectation of a confrontation, but when Takeda steps out of the bathroom he’s not even looking at Ukai for the first moment. He has his head ducked forward, his attention turned to the armful of clothes he’s collecting into a bundle in front of his slightly damp and very bare chest; Ukai only notices the frown of focus on Takeda’s lips for a moment before his attention drags itself away from the curl of the other’s hair and along the span of his shower-wet shoulders. Ukai can see the dip of the other’s waist coming in from the angle of his shoulders and the indentations at his collarbones; there’s water clinging to Takeda’s skin, a few droplets over the back of his neck from his dripping hair and a sheen of water against his back as he steps forward out of the bathroom door. He has a towel wrapped around his hips, long enough to cover most of his legs and twisted to careful security at his side, but the weight is pulling low enough that Ukai can see the dip of Takeda’s hipbones just against the top edge of the soft white, can sweep his attention down the curve of the other’s back and out to the base of his spine not-quite covered by the weight of the towel. There’s the hint of a shadow at Takeda’s hip, Ukai thinks, half-hidden by the clothes he’s collecting in his arms; or maybe it’s the beginnings of dark hair that Ukai is seeing, soft curls leading down to -- and then Takeda lifts his head to see Ukai staring and jumps back so suddenly he runs right up against the bathroom door.

“ _Oh_ ,” he gasps, the exclamation spilling from his lips at the same time his face flushes with self-consciousness. “ _Ukai_.”

Takeda might be coloring with embarrassment but he has nothing on Ukai. Ukai is sure he’s crimson from his hairline all the way to the collar of his shirt, to say nothing of the awkward hunch of his shoulders to tilt himself in over his lap. He wants to draw a leg up to shadow the strain at the front of his jeans, wants to tug the fabric into a better attempt to cover himself, but anything he does will just draw Takeda’s gaze, and under the wide-eyed bright of those eyes Ukai is as trapped as Takeda has made himself in backing against the door. He clears his throat instead, struggling for a clear voice around the strain of crippling embarrassment in his chest. “Morning.”

“I’m sorry,” Takeda gasps. “I thought you would still be asleep, so I didn’t--” He pulls his clothes in against his chest as if to make a wall of them, since he can’t struggle into them on the spot. His face is going darker, Ukai can watch the color bleeding down his shoulders and over his chest; the thought draws his attention away again, sliding down with unthinking interest before he comes back to himself and pulls his gaze up through the combined force of willpower and embarrassment at once.

“I only just woke up,” Ukai grates out. His voice sounds as if he’s never used it before in the whole of his life. He shakes his head in a half-formed attempt to offer more clarity to the almost-angry tone of his voice. “I don’t mind. You look good.” It’s only after he’s spoken that he realizes what he’s accidentally admitted, that he sucks in a sharp inhale and gasps a breath to try to backtrack. “I mean. It’s fine, I.” He looks away from Takeda to the wall in front of him instead, abandoning all hope of acting casual in favor of just getting the speeding rush of his heartbeat under some kind of control. He swallows and shakes his head again before he looks down at his hands in his lap. “I’m sorry I startled you.”

There’s a moment of silence. It might be peaceful, in other circumstances; at the present moment, Ukai thinks he’d rather go back to a few minutes earlier when the pain of his headache was all he had to worry about. His face is burning like a second sun, his skin is clammy with the cold misery of self-consciousness, and for the first time since he moved in he thinks he’d rather be anywhere but with the man standing across the room from him.

It’s then that Takeda laughs.

The sound is muffled, choked back from the full range of expression; even as Ukai’s head comes up on the first rush of shock he’s doubting his own identification of it, sure it must be something else he heard rather than the amusement it seemed. But then he looks up to meet Takeda’s gaze, and it _is_ a laugh, Takeda’s whole face is bright with the force of it even if he’s biting his lip to hold back the sound at his mouth. He’s still glowing red, still flushed with embarrassment all over the whole of his body, but his eyes are soft as he meets Ukai’s gaze without flinching, and his smile is as unrestrained as he sees the look on Ukai’s face.

“I’m sorry,” he says, the words clear of any of the strain that was on his first stuttering attempt at speech. “I’m being rather ridiculous, aren’t I?”

Ukai’s face burns hotter in spite of himself, but he’s laughing too, coughing over the sound as it forces its way free of his chest without pausing to check as to his intention. “You’re not the only one.”

Takeda ducks his head forward. “Let’s try this over again,” he says, and glances back up to look at Ukai through the dark of his lashes. “I’ll go and put some clothes on, unless you have any objections?”

Ukai has to close his mouth hard on the blurt of sound that tries to break free into an _I do_ at his lips. He shakes his head with force enough to push aside the influence of desire before he clears his throat to speak. “Yeah, that. That sounds like a great idea.”

Takeda beams at him. “Alright,” he says, and takes a step away from the bathroom door to move towards the hallway behind him. He doesn’t look away from Ukai’s face. “Do you...you could take a shower too, if you wanted.”

Ukai huffs a self-deprecating laugh. “You mean you _don’t_ want to talk to my clothes from last night?”

“Ah,” Takeda gasps, and presses his lips tight together as he flushes with a wave of renewed color. “No, not at all. You look…” as his gaze flickers down Ukai’s body, skimming across the fall of his shirt and the weight of his jeans. Ukai knows how he must look, rumpled and bleary and creased from his night on the couch, but Takeda’s lashes flutter as he gazes, his mouth comes open on a breath as his attention slows to wander over Ukai before him. There’s nothing to see, Ukai knows without looking -- even his awkwardly timed arousal has faded to the force of his embarrassment -- but Takeda’s gazing at him like he’s a work of art, and Ukai can’t look away from the glaze in Takeda’s eyes or the shift of his teeth catching at his lower lip. Takeda’s attention makes a full circuit of his body, lingering long enough that Ukai feels himself tensing with self-consciousness, and then his gaze jumps up at once, meeting Ukai’s stare with guilty haste as he shakes his head to steady himself. “You look very nice, Ukai.”

Ukai clears his throat. “Right,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to offer to a combination of outright untruth and latent desire so strong it’s almost glowing between them. “I’ll uh. I’ll take that shower, then.”

Takeda nods. “Yes,” he says, and takes another step backwards. “I’ll start some breakfast, if you’re hungry.”

“Sure,” Ukai says, adrift in the mundanity they’re using to talk around the bigger subject filling the whole of the apartment and both their thoughts. “If you don’t mind waiting for me.”

“No!” Takeda blurts, shaking his head. “No, I don’t mind waiting for you.” He opens his mouth to say something else, but whatever it is fails to make it to clarity, and he and Ukai are left staring at each other from across the distance of the apartment. Ukai’s skin prickles with self-consciousness as the silence gives Takeda’s words more weight than they had alone, as the echo of them seems to resonate in the apartment around them; and then Takeda takes another step backwards, and runs himself solidly into the corner of the hall behind him.

“Oh,” he gasps, turning to look back like he’s shocked by the sudden appearance of a standard component of the apartment he’s lived in for months, and Ukai snorts a laugh in spite of himself. Takeda looks back to him, his eyes wide and his mouth soft in the moment before his smile spreads out across his whole face to glow in his eyes and dimple at his cheeks. They stay there for a moment, just smiling at each other; and then Takeda takes a breath and clears his throat. “I’ll just--”

“Yeah,” Ukai agrees, too quickly but still around the force of his smile. “Sure. I’ll be right out.”

“Okay,” Takeda says, still beaming at Ukai. “Good.” He pauses for another moment, as if they’re saying goodbye for any real length of time and not just a few minutes, and then he huffs a breathless laugh and ducks his head to turn and pad away down the hallway to his room.

Ukai waits until he hears the sound of Takeda’s door shutting before he gets to his feet to make his way into the bathroom, but his smile’s still the brightest thing he glimpses in his reflection in the mirror.


	15. Articulate

Takeda is just finishing breakfast when Ukai emerges from his bedroom with hair damp from the shower and his towel in hand to hang up back in the bathroom. The smell of buttered toast is permeating the house, more appetizing to Ukai’s hangover than he expected it to be, and Takeda is lifting the lid of a teapot to peer inside as Ukai comes forward around the corner to the kitchen. He’s significantly more dressed than the last time Ukai saw him, even if he’s not bothered with anything more formal than jeans and a t-shirt; his hair is still curling against the back of his neck, catching at the back collar of his shirt as if it’s a temptation specifically calibrated for Ukai himself. Ukai watches the other for a moment, his attention wandering across Takeda’s shoulders and along the curve of his waist as he tries to set his hazy memories of the night before into place in his present reality, in the existence he has woken to find himself part of, and then Takeda lifts his head to look over and catches Ukai staring at him.

He doesn’t appear at all disconcerted at finding his roommate watching him frown at the tea before him. Rather, he’s smiling as quickly as he sees Ukai, his expression softening as immediately as if the other’s presence has urged him into it.

“Hello,” he says, and sets the lid back down onto the teapot without looking. “You were faster than I expected.” He gestures towards the teapot with his free hand, still without looking away from Ukai. “I was just making myself some tea, would you like a cup?”

Ukai nods. “Sure.”

Takeda beams as if Ukai has just granted the dearest wish of his heart. “Great,” he says, and turns away to come up onto his toes as he reaches for the cupboard set high over the counter.

Ukai clears his throat. “I’ll just put this away,” he says, speaking with needless volume as he holds up the towel at his side and ducks away without waiting for Takeda’s response.

It helps to be in the bathroom. Even with the door left open in his wake there’s more privacy here, a moment of distance from the audience Ukai knows is waiting for him just around the corner in the main space of the apartment. He hangs up his towel as he said he was going to, moving with far more care than he needs to before he looks back to consider himself in the bathroom mirror. His reflection is still hazy at the edges, caught in the effect of the steam from his shower fogging the glass, but he can see his expression well enough in the center where he wiped a portion of the mirror dry so he could run a comb through the tangle of his hair. He looks tired, mostly, with a weight to the corners of his mouth and a shadow under his eyes that speak clearly to his lack of sleep the night before, and neither are helped by the slope of his shoulders or the damp fall of his hair. Ukai frowns at himself and lifts a hand to push the locks back from his face, but that doesn’t help much either. He still looks like himself, a little hungover and a lot uncertain and no more appealing to his eye than he’s ever been before. If he’s going to have this conversation with Takeda he’d like to be at his best, to make his case as persuasive as possible, but there doesn’t seem to be the chance to do much just at the moment. His clothes are clean, at least, and he’s washed off the layer of sweat he picked up over the course of the night before; with his hair still wet from the shower and his eyes still heavy with sleep he can’t achieve much by way of tidying his appearance. He frowns at himself for a moment, still holding his hair back from his face, and finally he reaches for the drawer alongside the sink to pull it open and find a headband to at least keep the bleached-blond weight away from his face.

“Ukai?” Takeda’s voice calls from the other room just as Ukai is settling the narrow band into place in his hair. “Breakfast is ready whenever you are.”

“Sure,” Ukai calls back. “Just a sec.” He glances at himself in the mirror, frowns another judgment at his reflection, and then reaches to shut off the light before he steps out to brave the conversation waiting for him.

Takeda has exaggerated slightly. He’s still assembling the meal on the counter when Ukai emerges, although the promised cups of tea are set out at their respective places all the same. Ukai comes forward without waiting for an invitation to lay claim to the chair that has become his in practice if not in statement; he’s just settling himself into it when Takeda huffs a breath and sets the pan back down on one of the cool burners on the stove.

“There,” he says. “It’s all done.” Ukai looks up, wondering if he should offer to help, but Takeda’s already turning back from the counter, and with a plate in each hand it seems a simple enough matter even for him to bring them safely to the table. Ukai still reaches out to take his, just to be sure, and he’s rewarded by a smile from Takeda as he hands the plate off.

“Thank you,” Takeda says as he comes around to set his own plate down and pull his chair out to settle himself. “I hope it’s good.”

“It’ll be fine,” Ukai says even as he reaches for his fork. “Thanks for cooking.”

Takeda ducks his head. “Of course,” he says. Ukai glances up at him, wondering if they shouldn’t take the time to talk through...everything, really, before they continue on with the apparent normalcy of the day, but Takeda is laying his napkin out over his lap and seems willing to postpone any more serious conversations until after the meal. Ukai’s grateful to that, even as his heart flutters with nerves, and he turns himself to the eggs and toast that Takeda has made.

Ukai really does appreciate the food. His headache is easing, with the aid of a hot shower and a little time spent on his feet instead of lying across a less-than-comfortable couch, but the food does better than he expected at soothing the nausea that he woke with as another aftereffect of his indulgence last night. He goes through half the toast to start before cutting into a fried egg with the edge of his fork so the yolk spills out over his plate, and he’s just in the process of soaking up the liquid with the edge of another slice of bread when Takeda sets his fork down with intention enough that Ukai looks up even before the other clears his throat with obvious intention.

“Ukai,” Takeda says, with as much formality as if he really is the professor Ukai has teased him about being before. He only glances at Ukai’s face for a moment, as if he can’t stand to meet the other’s gaze, before his attention flickers down to hold firmly to the shift of the other’s hands now gone still over the edge of his plate. “I owe you an apology.”

There’s a force to the words that Ukai can feel run like ice down the length of his spine, as if all the comforting warmth that he’s collected for himself over the last hour has vanished in a sudden gust of chill wind. His shoulders tense, his breath catches, but his mouth is too full for him to speak immediately, even if he knew what he might say, and for a moment he’s held silent just by the need to clear his mouth for speech. He swallows hard, struggling for clarity at the same time his thoughts skid for words, but he’s still in the process of his efforts when Takeda takes a deep breath and tightens his hands into the clasp he’s made of them in his lap.

“But I’m not going to give it.” Ukai goes still, startled out of panic and into confusion, and Takeda lifts his chin to meet Ukai’s gaze with the full force of his own. His eyes are clear behind the shine of his glasses; the light spilling from the window behind Ukai’s shoulders catches at the shading of them to bring out the color of gold from the hazel they usually seem, and for a moment Ukai can’t find his breath at all.

“I’m not going to apologize,” Takeda says, still with that formal tone as if he’s making a confession. “I know I ought to. We agreed to be roommates to start with; my personal feelings will only complicate things at best and could make our present arrangement untenable for us both, in the worst case.” He shakes his head as if to shed the shadowy possibilities his careful language has just sketched. “But I’ve been thinking about it all morning, Ukai, and I’m not sorry at all for what happened last night.” His breath rushes out of him in a shuddering sigh; his gaze drops from Ukai’s stare to the table instead as he clears his throat carefully.

“To be honest.” His cheeks are flushing with a suggestion of color, pink as if springtime flowers are blooming under his skin. “I’m glad to have had the opportunity to…” He hesitates and coughs with some measure of awkward delicacy. “Confirm some of my suspicions, last night. I have...I have spent a very long time thinking about you, Ukai.”

Ukai can feel himself going red. Takeda’s words are deliberate, carefully formed to skirt the edges of polite euphemism, but their meaning is clear enough to leave no room for misunderstanding at all. For a moment his own imagination flickers to offer the thought of Takeda behind the shut door of his bedroom, turned in on his side with a hand at his hips and the other pressing over his mouth to hold back a moan in his throat, to hold back the sound of Ukai’s name as he strokes over himself; but Takeda is still speaking, oblivious to Ukai’s distraction or maybe just so fixed on his planned speech that he’s not fazed even by the other’s obvious self-consciousness.

“I like you,” Takeda says, with careful clarity on the words. His face is still flushed but his gaze is as unwavering as his voice, leaving no more space for doubt than for misunderstanding. “I like you a great deal, Ukai. I’d appreciate the chance to -- explore that, if you’re willing.” There’s only the faintest of catches in his speech over the verb, but the space is more than enough to spark another wave of ideas into Ukai’s too-hot imagination. Takeda’s lashes flutter as he takes another breath to steady himself. “I’d like to maintain our present situation, if possible. You’re a pleasure to live with, I can’t imagine being half as happy with someone else. But if you would rather keep romance separate from your living situation I understand.” Takeda’s head ducks forward, his lashes flutter again; when he speaks again his voice is a little softer, a little more hesitant, like he’s fighting for the words. “Of course, if you’re more interested in a roommate than a lover -- or if you’d rather I be neither to you -- I understand that as well.” Takeda’s face is going darker, his gaze is sliding away to his hands again; his fingers are tightening on his lap as if to fit themselves to the strain forming under his words. “I was...direct, last night, and I thought you were interested too but my judgment was less than entirely clear. If I was wrong--”

Ukai finally moves. He still doesn’t have words for himself, and he’s still halfway through a bite of toast he can’t seem to figure out how to swallow, but Takeda is tipping in over his hands like a wilting flower and Ukai can’t stay shocked-still while Takeda talks himself right out of the reality Ukai is still struggling to convince himself is more than a blissful fever-dream. He drops his fork to his plate, the weight of it clattering with more volume than he intended, and as Takeda is looking up in shock Ukai is leaning forward to reach out and clap his hand tight against the part of the other’s lips.

“Hang on,” he manages as he swallows hard to clear his mouth. “Unless this is a lecture, professor?” Takeda’s cheeks flush and he shakes his head without trying to pull away from the weight of Ukai’s hand on his mouth; Ukai huffs himself into a smile. “Cool.” He reaches for his cup of tea to wash down that too-big bite of toast but there’s hardly anything left; it’s while he’s frowning into the cup that Takeda lifts a hand from the tight press he’s made of them in his lap so he can pick up his own cup and offer it over the table. Ukai nods as he reaches to take it.

“Thanks.” He swallows nearly half of what’s left in Takeda’s glass, taking his time to make sure he’s found his way back to the possibility of speech; it’s only after he’s set the cup back down on the table that he looks back to frown mock frustration at Takeda. “Want to let me get a word in edgewise, maybe?” Ukai can feel Takeda’s lips press tight together under the weight of his hand as the other tries to fight back a smile before he ducks his head into a nod. Ukai heaves a sigh of overdone relief and draws his hand away so he can slump back into the support of his chair.

“Okay,” he says, and lifts his hand to push through the weight of his drying hair. “First of all. I don’t want to move out. I will if you want me to go, but otherwise I’d really like to stay here. With you.”

Takeda’s cheeks darken further, coloring with a surge of heat, but the tension at his mouth looks like he’s holding back a smile, even if his eyes are still wide with uncertainty. Ukai swallows deliberately and fixes his gaze on those eyes, offering Takeda back the same focus the other gave him.

“And I like you too,” he says, feeling the words dragging gruff on self-consciousness even as he gives them. “I’m definitely interested in...kissing, and dating, and--” He clears his throat sharply. “--More of what we were doing last night. With or without the alcohol.” Takeda shudders over a breath, his lashes dip to shadow his eyes with the weight of possibility; it takes Ukai conscious effort to keep his attention on the subject at hand instead of wandering back into the shadows of memory from the night before, into the arch of Takeda’s back and the heat of his mouth and the pant of his breathing. He looks down at his plate for a moment, fixing his gaze on the absolutely ordinary view of half-eaten breakfast while he fights back the tide of heat in him to a manageable level.

“I’d like to do both,” he says, his voice rough but the words clear. “Or try it, at least.” He shrugs and pushes a hand through his hair again. “Doesn’t really make sense to give up before we’ve even tried just because it might not work out.”

“I agree,” Takeda blurts, and Ukai’s gaze jumps up from his plate to meet the other’s eyes before he can think. Takeda is leaning in from the support of his chair, his hands still clasped in his lap but his shoulders tilted so far forward he looks in some danger of toppling right out of the support entirely and onto the dishes laid out across the table. His eyes are wide, his mouth is set; he looks like he’s ready to take on the world itself, now that he has Ukai’s agreement. “I believe we can make it work.”

Ukai huffs a laugh. “Maybe we can,” he says, and lifts his shoulder into a shrug. “Trying seems like it’d be a lot easier than going back to being just roommates now.”

Takeda’s smile sparkles in his eyes and dimples at his cheeks. “I know what you mean,” he says. “It’s been hard enough not kissing you when I had only thought about it but the reality was so much better, I don’t know how I’d be able to resist now.”

Ukai’s cheeks burn into heat as his stomach swoops into a free-fall of self-consciousness and pleasure combined. He stares at Takeda for a moment, gazing into the unflinching bright of those eyes and the curve of that smile, and then he clears his throat roughly and forces himself to speak casually in spite of the embarrassment all across his face.

“Yeah,” he says. “I don’t think I’d be very good at it either.” And he reaches out to catch his hand at the back of Takeda’s neck and lean in to press his lips against the other’s while Takeda’s mouth is still going soft on surprise.

They knock Takeda’s cup over and spill tea all across the table and onto Ukai’s jeans, but Ukai still thinks it’s worth it just for the feel of Takeda’s smile glowing into warmth against the press of his lips.


	16. Spontaneous

Ukai doesn’t sleep well that night. He and Takeda don’t do any more than kiss over the wreckage they make of the breakfast table, in the end, a fact that Ukai’s libido protests but his headache appreciates, and when they do finally manage to pull apart it’s only for Takeda to gasp breathlessly and apologize for needing to catch up on grading he left undone the day before. Ukai can hardly argue that point -- he has homework of his own that he ought to be working on in any case -- and in the end they help each other clean up the table and the kitchen before retreating to the relative safety of their own rooms. Ukai spends the rest of the day trying and mostly failing to study, interspersed with a nap that’s mostly an excuse to wander through daydreams brought into hazy almost-reality by his unconscious mind, until finally he and Takeda share a quick dinner before giving way for the evening. Ukai hesitates over the dishes he’s promised to do, wondering if he should kiss Takeda goodnight, if he should offer anything more on the off-chance the other might want or expect it, under their newly changed circumstances; but Takeda answers both questions at once, first by rocking up onto his toes for a quick kiss as if he’s always said goodnight that way, and secondly with a smile and a hope for Ukai to sleep well that leaves his expectations perfectly clear. Ukai flickers a smile of his own, still a little dizzy just from the warmth of Takeda’s lips against his, and it’s only after the sound of the other’s door has clicked shut down the hallway that he leans forward to press his forehead against the cabinet doors and breathe through a shaky exhale of disbelief.

He has class again the next day. Takeda’s door is shut when Ukai gets up: he might have left earlier than usual, to study or finish the last of his grading or just to grab a coffee on the way to his own classes, but Ukai is quiet in his movements all the same, just in case Takeda is still asleep. He lingers long in the shower, standing under the heat of the spray while he stares unseeing at the white wall before him and thinks about the curve of Takeda’s smile and the murmur of his voice, only to find all his free time before the bus arrives eaten up when he returns to his bedroom. He has to rush to throw on a fresh change of clothes and pull his hair back into a ponytail rather than letting it dry, and he’s still carrying his books in his arms when he bolts out of the apartment to run for the corner and catch his usual bus just before it leaves.

His rough start is symbolic of the day waiting for him. He makes it to his first class on time, settling into his seat a few seconds before the professor comes into the room to lay her notes out on the desk before her, but in spite of a fresh sheet of paper and the pen in his hand the end of class comes while Ukai has done no more than write the date at the top corner of what are meant to be his notes. He stares at the blank sheet before him, confronting the evidence of his hazy daydreams in the absolute lack of information from a lecture’s worth of class before he heaves a sigh and collects pen and paper alike to head for his next. That goes no better; he loses track of which class he’s heading to, skipping to aim for the third lecture he has instead of the second, and after he’s backtracked he slips into the lecture hall late enough to earn himself a few stares from his fellow students and a frown from the speaker. Ukai takes more notes, there, although he can’t tell if they’re of any real value, and if he’s careful to go to the right classroom after that it still takes him longer than it should, as if every action he takes is fundamentally slowed by the distraction that has spread itself into the whole of his thoughts. By the start of his last class Ukai doesn’t even bother writing the title of the lecture at the top of his notebook; it’s not notes that he’s making in the margins anyway, or at least not notes that have any bearing on the lecture subject at the moment.

He keeps his notebook with him as he makes his way back to the bus stop to head home with the conclusion of his early-afternoon class. He sets himself up in the far back corner of the bus, alongside a window he can tip himself against to achieve some measure of comfort for the ride, and while he’s waiting for the bus to start up and pull out of its usual place he flips the cover of his notebook open and around so he can brace the pad against his knees and touch his pen against the possibilities he has written in the top corner.

It’s hard to know where to start. Having a boyfriend is a new experience for Ukai: he had a few short-lived flings in high school and one over the gap between graduation and his college acceptance, but none that lasted long enough to have any need for a title. Usually they ended after a few makeout sessions or a round of hasty sex, and however much Ukai wants both of those from whatever he has stumbled into with Takeda he’s even more concerned about rushing into something and making a mistake, their desperate interlude two nights before notwithstanding. So however vivid his imagination may be at present -- and his distraction during his first two classes, he thinks, is evidence enough that it is operating at its fullest potential -- Ukai’s list of ideas is a far more edited version than the one his frantic fantasies began this morning with. Even then some of them are immediately impossible, at least for tonight: he’s not going to be able to manage anything involving travel on short notice, for one thing, and even going to the trouble of making some kind of special dinner will require a trip to the grocery store and a little more experimentation than Ukai is likely to manage in the span of the hour he has before Takeda will be on his way back from class. But he’s feeling Takeda’s absence, even if it’s only one day; the rational awareness that he has more than once gone full weeks with hardly so much as a greeting amidst the distraction of class schedules and studying doesn’t change the facts of the present moment. Ukai has a boyfriend, Ukai _is_ a boyfriend, at least for now, and he has felt the mingled appreciation and anxiety that comes with that knowledge scattering his thoughts away from any focus but his plans for the evening all day.

It’ll be easier to keep things simple, Ukai decides. He’s been more than happy just to spend a few hours with Takeda on other evenings, when neither of them was caught up by their deadlines or distracted with work on a project; their official declaration of their mutual feelings has just made Ukai crave that more, with the unspoken barrier to overt romance that has been there before now removed. He’d like the chance to do more, to make more concrete plans later on, weeks or months from now, if he gets the opportunity; but right now Ukai can think of nothing more satisfying than spending the evening with his roommate at his side and the implicit permission to lean in and claim a kiss from that soft smile whenever the thought of such may strike. The idea tightens his lips on a smile even as he contemplates it, colors over his cheeks with such self-consciousness that for a moment all he can do is duck in over his notebook and lift a hand to smooth against the weight of his tied-back hair; and it’s while he’s tipped in over his short list of date ideas that his gaze hits on one right in the middle of the list as if it was drawn there.

Ukai lifts his gaze from his lap. The bus has been meandering its way through the city streets, pulling in at occasional stops to release or pick up new passengers; it’s just making the left turn to carry them through downtown before it turns onto the street that runs by the front of Ukai and Takeda’s apartment building. It’s still three stops before Ukai’s usual drop-off point, and he’s a handful of blocks away from home where they are now; but Ukai’s gaze slides out the window to land on the illuminated sign of one of the familiar restaurants downtown, and when he moves it’s to reach up and pull the cord to request a stop even as he fumbles his bag open to fit his notebook inside without bothering to close it. He’s on his feet by the time the bus is stopping, coming down the aisle from the back corner so he can grab at the support and swing himself around to stand before the back doors as the bus draws in before the sign for the stop.

“Thank you!” Ukai calls as the doors come open, pitching his voice loud so it’ll carry to the driver, but he doesn’t wait for a response before he’s stepping forward and out onto the sidewalk to turn back towards the restaurant a few building lengths behind him. He latches his bag as he strides down the pavement, his steps gaining speed as he moves, until by the time he’s crossing the parking lot and coming up towards the restaurant itself he’s almost jogging, his steps granted strength and speed by the flush of happiness glowing in his chest and pulling to a grin at his face.

It’ll be another hour until Takeda makes his way home, but Ukai doesn’t mind the wait. He’ll need the time to get ready, anyway.


	17. Persuasive

Ukai is just turning the television on when he hears the latch of the front door open.

“I’m home,” Takeda says, calling into the space of the apartment as he pushes the door open and steps inside. He’s watching his footing as he comes in, careful over the slight rise at the bottom edge of the doorway that he tends to catch his toes on; Ukai is left to lean back against the support of the couch unseen and grin at Takeda’s bowed head as the other steps into the entryway and toes one of his shoes off.

“Welcome back,” he says, drawling the words into a little more warmth than they quite need. It’s worth it immediately, for the way Takeda’s head comes up to bring the soft of the other’s gaze to meet Ukai’s, and then all over again, as Takeda’s attention skips from Ukai’s face to the plates and containers set out across the coffee table in front of him. Takeda’s eyes go wide, his arm drops to his side as his hold on his bag goes slack, and for a moment he’s just standing in the open doorway staring surprise at Ukai in front of him.

Ukai clears his throat. “I hope you don’t mind,” he says, trading over flirtatious heat for rough sincerity. “I wanted to have something kind of special waiting for you when you got home.”

“Oh,” Takeda breathes. He takes a step forward out of the entryway, just enough to clear the door so he can push it shut behind him. “Is that dinner?”

Ukai nods. “It’s just takeout,” he admits, and lifts a hand to gesture towards the television screen. “And a movie rental.” He lifts a hand to ruffle through his hair. “I wanted to do the dinner and a movie thing but a little more casually.”

Takeda’s smile breaks over the whole of his face. “Ukai, that’s so sweet.”

Ukai shrugs as his face starts to heat into a flush in spite of himself. “More lazy than anything else,” he admits. “I just didn’t want to put shoes back on after I got home.”

Takeda laughs. “That’s okay,” he says. “I’d rather have a night in with you anyway.” He looks down to watch his feet as he works his other shoe off with deliberate care before stepping out of the entryway and into the living room itself. “Do I have time to put my things down?”

“Sure,” Ukai says as he pushes to his feet. “Want me to grab you a soda?”

Takeda beams sunshine at him. “I’d love that.” Ukai turns back towards the kitchen to get a pair of bottles from the fridge and Takeda continues on down the hallway to his room. He leaves the door open behind him without bothering to pull it shut; even from the kitchen Ukai can hear the soft sound of the other’s movements as he sets his bag down and rustles through it to set his books at the edge of his desk.

“I hope I didn’t interrupt your plans,” Ukai calls down the hallway. “I thought you got your grading done yesterday, but do you have studying or anything you need to do?”

“No!” Takeda’s voice is a little muffled by the distance but the answer comes quickly enough to leave Ukai no time to so much as tense with concern for the reply. “I finished everything yesterday and I don’t have anything due until the end of the week.” There’s a shadow at the doorway to Takeda’s bedroom; the other reemerges into the hallway as he’s in the middle of pulling a t-shirt over his head in place of the button-up shirt and tie he stripped off in the bedroom. There’s a flicker of bare skin, a shift of movement Ukai can watch pull across Takeda’s stomach and up against the curve of his waist, and then he’s pulling the shirt down into place, huffing a breath and reaching to straighten his glasses on his face again. His hair is rumpled by the change of shirts; even the hand he pushes through it doesn’t achieve much except to tousle the curls into a somewhat different alignment than they were in originally. Takeda lifts his gaze to see Ukai watching him and flashes the brilliant, dimpling smile he usually offers without so much as a hint of self-consciousness at finding himself the object of Ukai’s attention. “I was actually hoping you’d be free to spend the night with me tonight.”

Ukai’s face heats in spite of himself, but when he clears his throat it’s with a smile dragging at the corner of his mouth. “Come on, professor,” he drawls, stepping forward to offer a pair of bottles to Takeda as the other comes in to take them. “You telling me you were thinking about something other than the welfare of your students in class today?”

Takeda ducks his head and huffs a laugh that sounds sheepish, but he’s still watching Ukai over the tops of his glasses and the tension at his mouth looks more pleased than embarrassed. “I’m afraid I was,” he admits. “It was something of a challenge to keep my mind from wandering.”

“That so?” Ukai asks. Takeda has both bottles in his hands now but Ukai maintains his hold against the narrower necks; the point of connection between them keeps Takeda looking up at him while Ukai’s mouth tugs onto a smirk. “What kind of things could pull your attention away from your beloved students?”

Takeda’s lashes flutter. “Personal concerns,” he says, his voice a little shaky but his gaze unflinching as he holds Ukai’s. His shoulders are tilting in, Ukai thinks, edging away at the minimal space left between them. “Nothing appropriate for a school environment.”

Ukai’s breath rushes from him. “Yeah?”

“Mm.” Takeda’s lashes dip, his focus flickers from Ukai’s gaze to the other’s mouth; when he swallows Ukai can see the motion work in his throat. “Yes.” His grip tightens on the contact between them, he rocks up onto his toes, and Ukai shuts his eyes in surrender as Takeda’s mouth presses gently against his. It’s a brief kiss, delicate even as it lingers against his mouth; it speaks to Ukai’s distraction, he thinks, that he’s left so dazed by it as Takeda falls back onto his heels and draws the bottles out of his hands.

Ukai has to clear his throat before he can speak. “You’re right,” he says. His voice is rough and he doesn’t make any attempt to pull it up to clarity. “That’s not at _all_ appropriate for a school environment.”

“Good thing we’re at home,” Takeda smiles at up him, and Ukai has to duck in to kiss him again for the soft of his expression as much as the domesticity of the statement. He doesn’t linger in it; it’s easier to make himself pull away if he’s fast about it, until he’s backing away into the kitchen while Takeda’s lashes are still fluttering in reaction to his retreat.

“I’ll get a bottle opener,” Ukai says, gesturing over his shoulder before he can pull himself together enough to turn and actually finish the motion. “Go ahead and get started, I’ll be right over.”

“Right,” Takeda says, and moves to do exactly that. Ukai rummages through one of the kitchen drawers until he finds the opener he’s looking for and comes back from the kitchen, shutting off the light as he goes to leave the room illuminated by just the glow from the paused title card of the movie on the screen before them. Takeda is serving food from one of the cartons onto a plate; as Ukai sets down the second newly-opened bottle of soda the other turns to hand him the meal with another one of those irresistible smiles.

“Thanks,” Ukai says as he takes the plate and moves to sit against the couch next to Takeda. They’re a little closer than they’ve sat before, without the careful gap between them that Ukai has put such effort into maintaining for the benefit of his own self-control; the awareness of it sends warmth spilling all through his body just for how near Takeda’s knee is to his own, how easy it would be to reach out and drape his arm around the other’s shoulders. Takeda’s still leaning forward over the table to serve himself; Ukai balances his plate on his lap so he can reach out for the remote and unpause the frozen title screen. Takeda lifts his head as sound spills from the television, the illumination from the screen catches against his glasses, and Ukai sets the remote back down and leans back to settle into the couch as he starts in on his food.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he says as Takeda leans back to take up the space next to him. Ukai lifts his fork to gesture towards the play of light across the screen before he looks down to focus his attention on the highly important task of the meal before him. “I wasn’t sure if you had seen this already or not.”

Takeda shakes his head while he finishes swallowing his bite of food. “Not at all,” he manages after clearing his mouth. “I didn’t see many movies before you moved in. I always liked the idea of it but they’re never as entertaining when you watch them alone.”

“Glad to provide company, then,” Ukai says. When he looks sideways Takeda is watching his face with a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth; Ukai’s own lips tense onto a grin of his own before he ducks his head and clears his throat so he can continue on into his meal.

He’s only giving the movie half his attention. The takeout he brought home is hot and throwing up curls of wafting steam that make Ukai’s mouth water when he so much as pauses between bites to swallow a mouthful of the soda fizzing from the bottles set before them; he hadn’t remembered to be hungry this morning or over the lunch break, but his appetite has caught up with him now, and Ukai applies himself to his meal with the attention it deserves. He glances up at the screen occasionally, usually in time to catch a dramatic monologue or a skidding car chase, but it’s not until the containers are empty of all but the last few bites of their meal and he’s swallowing the last of his soda that Ukai leans back to really watch the movie.

It’s not a particularly complex plot. Ukai had chosen something more for the charm of having something to put on over dinner than out of a burning desire to know the intricacies of the narrative; the basic setup of betrayals and chases is easy to pick back up, even after several minutes of almost complete distraction. Ukai thinks he’s just about caught himself back up by the time Takeda sets his cleared plate down atop Ukai’s own and braces himself to shift back across the couch towards the other. He comes in close, with even less attention to the space they are used to maintaining between them than what Ukai offered, until his shoulder ends up pushing hard against Ukai’s arm as he gets himself settled. The pressure reminds Ukai of Takeda’s head at his shoulder, of Takeda slumped in sleep-heavy against the support he offered, and his attention slides away from the television screen again to cut through the dip of his lashes and land at Takeda alongside him.

Takeda is smiling. He’s watching the television instead of Ukai, his gaze fixed on the flicker of light that is the only illumination they have in the room at the moment, but his expression is distracted all the same, his eyes soft with the weight of visible daydreams rather than at all focused on what is happening in the course of the movie in front of him. It makes Ukai smile, his mouth mirroring the other’s expression without any conscious effort on his part, and the motion must catch Takeda’s eye because he turns as quickly as Ukai shifts, his head turning to track the other’s gaze on him at once. His eyes go brighter, his smile spreads wider, and when he lifts his hand it’s to push a curl of his hair needlessly behind his ear.

“This is fun,” he says without looking away from Ukai’s face. “I think at-home dates are a brilliant idea.”

Ukai snorts. “We should go out too, sometimes,” he offers. “There are some things we can’t do at home, after all.”

Takeda’s shoulder draws up onto a shrug. “That’s true,” he says, though he sounds unconvinced. He ducks his head forward over his hands, clasping them together against his lap while he takes a deliberate inhale like he’s bracing himself. “Though there are some specific advantages to being in the privacy of our own home, too.”

It takes Ukai a moment to make sense of this. If Takeda were meeting his gaze he isn’t sure he would follow at all; he would just accept the basic fact of the statement and let his attention swing back to the movie that is sliding farther from his interest by the moment. But Takeda’s watching his hands in his lip, his teeth catching against his lip as his cheeks gain color enough for Ukai to see even in the dim lighting of their present situation, and that’s enough for Ukai to blink, and backtrack, and think over the implications of the other’s words in more detail. It only takes a moment; then his own cheeks darken, his shoulders tense, and he has to take a careful inhale before he can clear his throat enough to trust his own words.

“Hey, Takeda,” he says carefully. “Are you trying to _seduce_ me?”

Takeda’s hands tighten, his lashes flutter. “Ah,” he says with conscious incoherence. “I’m...I’m sorry, I--”

“Because I gotta tell you,” Ukai says, speaking loudly so the sound of his voice will carry over Takeda’s flushing attempt at apology, “It’s working.”

Takeda’s words break off, Takeda’s head comes up. The movie is still playing on the screen but neither of them so much as glances even as the sound of a manufactured explosion ripples from the speakers. Takeda looks as if he’s forgotten there are such things as movies in the whole of the world, for how wide and bright his eyes are as he looks up at Ukai. Ukai huffs a breath, feels the force of it pulling onto a laugh at his lips in spite of himself, and when Takeda shifts to loosen his hold on his hands in his lap Ukai is leaning in too, bracing a hand in the gap between them while he reaches up to urge his fingers into the waves of Takeda’s hair curling against his head. Takeda’s lashes flutter, Takeda’s head tips up like he’s answering the magnetism of Ukai on instinct more than thought, and Ukai braces his hand at the back of Takeda’s head and ducks in to offer up the rest of his fragmented attention to the part of Takeda’s lips against his. The sound of the television fades out, fingers close at Ukai’s shirt to fist against the fabric, and when Takeda pulls Ukai lets himself be drawn down to fall atop the other and over the couch cushions without any thought to hesitation in his mind or his actions.

They might not be taking things as slowly as Ukai had imagined, but he’s not about to complain about getting everything he wants at once.


	18. Resolution

Ukai has forgotten all about the movie still flickering on the television screen.

He had intended to take things slow. Bringing home dinner and putting on a movie seemed like a good place to start, in the inverted-order romance he and Takeda have toppled into; if he thought about any kind of distractions during the same, he had kept his imagination limited to the weight of his arm around Takeda’s shoulders, or the press of idle kisses against dark hair, or maybe even a few minutes of shared inattention, if the movie proved to be particularly boring. It’s not boring -- or, at least, it wasn’t, as far as Ukai was able to tell -- but all Ukai’s thoughts of chaste, stolen kisses apparently had no effect at all on the other party involved, and no sooner had Ukai’s mouth brushed Takeda’s than Takeda was turning in to grab at Ukai’s shirt and pull the other down atop him with complete disregard for the movie still playing in the background. Ukai’s resistance had disintegrated to the heat in his veins and the catch of his breathing rushing fast in his chest, as Takeda’s fingers proved far more inventive and far more persuasive than he was expecting them to, until by the time the movie is building to the crescendo of its last fight scene they’ve managed to divest themselves of both pairs of pants, Ukai’s shirt, and Takeda’s socks. Ukai has a hand bracing at the arm of the couch, his arm straining with the effort to hold himself up that he’s not even feeling for the radiant want coursing through him, and Takeda has one arm around his neck and the other somewhere between their hips, fumbling for a grip on clothing as uncoordinated as it has thus far been effective.

There’s a burst of sound from the television: the staticky heights of an explosion, Ukai thinks, or maybe a shout from a character whose name he can no more recall than he can think of his own. There’s only one he can think of when he reaches for it, and that is sticking on such tension in his throat that he thinks it may spill into a moan if he tries to give it voice. But Takeda’s fingers are shifting down his back, following the curve of his spine to the elastic marking out the top edge of his boxers, and when his touch dips in and down Ukai’s throat works and offers up that same sound without any chance for his conscious mind to hold it back.

“ _Takeda_.” It really  _is_  a moan, hot and low enough that Takeda huffs a startled breath in response and his arm tightens around Ukai’s neck; Ukai has to struggle to fill his lungs again, to find his way back to some measure of coherency while Takeda’s fingers slide over the far edge of intimacy to stir already-certain desire to heights of flaring tension. “Takeda, I.”

“Ukai,” Takeda groans, and if Ukai’s voice is hot Takeda’s has gone to steam enough to spill a burn across the other’s cheeks just for the hearing, just for the contact of that tone to the shape of his name. Takeda’s hips rock up underneath Ukai’s, his body pressing so close Ukai can feel the shudder of tension in his muscles; Ukai ducks his head down, the air leaving his lungs as his hips buck down to respond with the immediacy of instinct more than the clarity of thought. “Please, Ukai.” Ukai doesn’t know what it is Takeda is asking for -- he’s not entirely sure Takeda knows himself -- but he’s responding to the sound of the other’s voice all the same, his whole body canting forward in answer before he has time to even think about what he’s doing. Takeda’s mouth catches his, Takeda’s tongue slides in to work past the part of his lips and into the heat of his mouth, and when Takeda pulls against him Ukai falls forward with immediate obedience to the urging of those hands.

Ukai’s not entirely sure how they’re positioned. He has one knee digging in hard at the edge of the couch, near enough to toppling over the lip that he can feel the precariousness of the angle with every shift he takes, but Takeda is pinned underneath him, the whole of his body pressing flush to Ukai’s, and Ukai can’t spare even the moment of distance that would be necessary to steady his position. Better to lean in instead, to hold Takeda down against the cushions with the press of his lips while he fumbles his free hand in and under the loose weight of what clothing the other has left to him while the friction of Takeda’s own touch draws around Ukai’s hip and tugs at the tension of the elastic holding boxers to his skin. Ukai whimpers at the feel of fabric shifting as Takeda pulls at the clothing, as the urging of the other’s hands pushes him far closer to indecent than he already is, but Takeda is pushing in and down already, his fingers reaching to find and close around Ukai’s length, and all Ukai can think to do is moan in the back of his throat and let his body rock forward against that resistance.

“ _God_ ,” he blurts, still so close to Takeda’s mouth that the word goes strange and dark in its own echo. “Takeda, you.”

“Ukai,” Takeda sighs, and Ukai can hear the satisfaction even just on that one word, even with the tension so high in Takeda’s body that he can feel it trembling through him with every breath. “I want you so much.”

“Oh,” Ukai breathes. It’s hard to think, hard to focus: harder still to believe that this is real, even now, that the man who a week ago was the subject of secret fantasies and polite conversation is now pinned under him, his few remaining clothes rumpled up off his bare skin and his voice spilling to the syrup-heat of want and his fingers closing around Ukai’s cock, stroking sensation out into Ukai’s body and up his spine with every motion. Ukai’s hips come forward of their own volition, his thighs working to buck clumsy force against the pull of Takeda’s grip, and beneath him Takeda gasps as if it’s the give of his body Ukai is thrusting into, as if he can feel the friction of the other’s movement working inside him in truth instead of overheated imagination. Ukai’s fingers clutch against the heat they’re pressing to; it’s only as his thumb slides over the angle of bone under skin that he can place himself as gripping at Takeda’s bare hip in the gap between his rucked-up shirt and his underwear. Ukai’s head comes down, his attention dropping to the strain of his fingers, the shadow of his grip fitting so close against Takeda’s body before his gaze slides sideways, following the line of skin bared by Takeda’s rumpled shirt across to where he’s flushed as hard against the inside of his clothes as Ukai can feel himself under the drag of Takeda’s grip on him.

“Takeda,” Ukai groans. “I want--” but he can’t find words, can’t pull speech free from the press of Takeda’s fingers working over him. He braces hard at the couch instead, holding himself steady enough that he can let his other hold go and bring his fingers up and across, trailing his touch in the wake of his wandering gaze. He almost hesitates, with his thumb fitting just alongside the dip of Takeda’s navel and his fingers skirting the edge of the other’s waistband; but he can see the flex of Takeda’s wrist even in the dim from the television, can feel the focused attention in the way Takeda is stroking up over him, and so Ukai lets his breath go in a rush and pushes his touch in and down to urge under the weight of Takeda’s clothes. The fabric pushes aside, Takeda shudders over a breath, and Ukai’s fingers are fitting in around the heat of Takeda’s length, his grip tightening on sensation even before he pulls up to give Takeda back some measure of the heat he’s granting Ukai.

Takeda arches up under him, his hips jerking to meet Ukai’s touch with startling force. It’s enough to throw off Ukai’s motion for a moment, as their wrists bump and catch together; for a breath they’re pressing against each other, the head of Ukai’s cock digging in against Takeda’s stomach and Takeda’s length pinned flush to Ukai’s hip. Takeda groans, rocking up against the friction with force enough that Ukai has the brief, dizzy thought of giving up their holds completely, of just pressing together and grinding themselves to completion like the desperate teenager he feels himself thrown back into being; but then Takeda drops back to the couch, his legs trembling under the press of Ukai’s, and Ukai is stroking up at once, giving Takeda back the friction thus lost with instinctive haste. He can feel the tension of response ripple through Takeda under him, can see it as clearly in the tremor at the other’s lashes as in the tension that flexes Takeda’s grip tighter around his own length; and then they’re moving at once, falling into a matched rhythm that Ukai thinks is formed more of shared desperation than of any conscious effort on either of their parts. Takeda is curving to meet Ukai, his back and hips coming up off the support of the couch with reflexive strain, as if the motion of Ukai’s grip over him is enough to pull unseen strength free from his body, but no sooner is he arching up than Ukai is pressing down, rocking forward to meet Takeda’s hold and Takeda’s hips and Takeda’s mouth all forming such a welcome for him. His mouth catches Takeda’s, the sound of some shared-out heat echoes between their lips, and when Ukai strokes over Takeda’s length he doesn’t pull away any more than he falls back for the friction of the other’s hold on him.

The movie is forgotten. There’s still sound spilling from the speakers -- at least Ukai assumes there is, since the light flickering over Takeda beneath him is still shifting with enough variation to say that the film hasn’t yet hit the darkness of the credit screen. But Ukai doesn’t hear it, the spoken lines or the crash and boom of special effects, however dramatic they may be: all he’s paying attention to is the rasp of his breathing, and the drag of friction, and the soft sounds he and Takeda are sharing out between their mouths. Takeda whimpers when Ukai’s hips come down, his throat opens up on a moan as Ukai presses his thumb in nearer; Ukai’s chest tightens at the flex of Takeda’s fingers tensing around him, and when there’s a press of teeth catching gently at his lip he can’t help the groan in his throat. They’re moving together, hands and hips and chests, pressing as close together as they can get with no more elegance than what the instinct of desire can grant them. Ukai’s knee slips at the edge of the couch, his balance tips to the side; he has to catch his foot against the floor to brace himself in place and hold steady against the force of Takeda’s hand moving over him. Takeda’s arm is hot against Ukai’s neck, their skin catching together with a layer of sweat formed from the fever-heat Ukai is gasping over with every inhale, in a minute it’ll be too hot and too much and unbearable; but Takeda is still tense under Ukai, and Ukai is dizzy with want and can’t pull back even to fill his lungs with air. All he can do is keep moving, stroking with a frantic speed as if he’s trying to urge his own pleasure free, seeking out relief in spite of the cramp in his arm and the ache in his shoulder; and it’s then that Takeda’s thumb slips over the head of his cock, and Ukai can feel his entire body go tense with sudden, unavoidable certainty.

“Oh,” he gasps, the word going strange and incomprehensible against Takeda’s mouth. Ukai’s head comes down, the contact of a kiss given up under the weight of his head, suddenly impossible to hold up as his whole body ripples with anticipation. “Oh, god, Takeda, you--” and his thighs jolt, his hips buck, and he’s coming in a wave over Takeda’s grip and the hem of the other’s shirt. Takeda gasps a breath, sounding startled and overheated at once, and for a moment even Ukai’s steady stroking gives way to the overwhelming immediacy of his orgasm. He shudders through the force of it, his body quivering with each shock of sensation as Takeda pulls the heat and the strain free of his body at once; and then the haze gives way, Ukai gasps a breath of air, and he resumes the motion of his grip over Takeda even before he lifts his head from the other’s shoulder. Takeda tenses under him, his legs flexing hard on sudden strain as he gasps a half-strangled inhale, and Ukai braces his grip at the couch and pushes himself up by a handful of inches so he can look down at Takeda beneath him.

Takeda looks dazed. Even in the off-set illumination from the screen his flush is dark across his cheeks and marking his mouth to soft-sweet damp; his glasses are off-center, knocked from their straight line somewhere in the struggle to free them both of their clothes or to press closer to bare skin. His lashes dip as he looks up at Ukai, his eyes turned dark as much by arousal as by the poor lighting; when Ukai strokes up over him he can see Takeda’s focus melt away, can see his mouth drop open as his lashes fall shut. His shoulders tense under the thin of his shirt, his hips angle up; Ukai lets his come down by an inch, just enough to brace the other steady against the drag of his hand as he moves faster, falling into a pace to match the color in Takeda’s cheeks instead of the languid relief in his own veins. Takeda’s forehead creases, he gasps something incoherent, his fingers struggle for purchase in Ukai’s hair, and Ukai can no more keep his distance than he can remember how to stop. He ducks in close, bridging the gap between them to press his mouth flush against Takeda’s parted lips, and he stays there as Takeda’s back arches, as his head angles back, as a moan spills up from his chest and into Ukai’s close-pressed mouth. His legs quiver, his fingers spasm, and Ukai lets the sound of Takeda coming fill his mouth as he draws the waves of heat out and over the tension of the other’s stomach beneath him.

They’re both panting by the time Ukai lets his hold go and draws up and away. Takeda is sprawled over the couch, his arm around Ukai’s shoulders heavy with its own weight and his other pinned awkwardly in the space between them; his eyes are shut, his breathing coming as hard in his chest as Ukai’s own. Ukai’s heart is still racing with the effect of lingering adrenaline even as the strain of arousal melts into the heavy heat of satisfaction; it takes him longer than it should to think through shifting his weight so he can draw his foot up from the floor and settle himself back onto the couch. His arm is shaking from supporting himself; he only keeps his hold long enough to push himself to the far edge of the couch so he won’t collapse outright onto Takeda, and even then Takeda turns in as quickly as Ukai moves to press them together. His leg catches around Ukai’s knee, weighting them skin-close in spite of the humid heat surrounding them, and Ukai doesn’t protest. He lets his bracing arm fall instead, draping around the dip of Takeda’s waist as he gazes out over the top of the other’s head to make idle sense of the images on the screen before him.

There’s quiet for a moment, with only the movie’s soundtrack to fill the space with anything more than the slowing rasp of their breathing. Then Takeda shifts his shoulders as if to settle himself in closer against Ukai and takes a breath deliberate enough to speak to his intention before his words do. “Did we miss the movie?”

Ukai snorts a laugh. “Pretty much,” he says. His fingers catch at the back of Takeda’s shirt and he pushes up by an inch to trace distracted patterns against the line of the other’s back. “It looks like everything is over now, basically.”

“Mm,” Takeda hums into Ukai’s shirt. He sounds a little bit drowsy, like he’s maybe thinking of falling asleep right where they are. “Did it have a happy ending?”

Ukai smiles. “Yeah.”

“That’s good.” Takeda sighs and presses his head in closer to Ukai’s shoulder. The line of his glasses digs in against the other’s skin. “Let’s try watching it again tomorrow.”

Ukai tips his head down to look at Takeda against him, but he can’t make out any of the other’s expression but the shadow of his hair. “You don’t think we’ll have this same problem tomorrow?”

Takeda’s shoulder comes up in a clear shrug. “We might,” he says, and he turns his head to look up at Ukai. He’s fighting with a smile but his eyes are more than bright enough to give away any claim at innocence he might make. “I suppose we’ll just have to try it and see what happens.”

Ukai doesn’t even try to hold back his laugh. “I see how it is,” he says. “You’ll never give me any rest, huh?”

Takeda’s lashes dip, his mouth softens. “I’m sor--”

Ukai ducks in at once, stifling the sound of the apology against his lips. Takeda’s mouth goes pliant beneath his, his lashes dip over his gaze; Ukai lingers for a long moment just for the satisfaction of the contact before he pulls away.

“You don’t need to apologize,” he says, aware he sounds gruff with heat and not caring at all. “I didn’t say I  _minded_.”

Ukai only gets to grin at Takeda for a moment before the other is pushing up to clutch at the back of his head and press a kiss to his mouth, but it seems more than a fair trade to make.


	19. Dedication

They make use of every room in the apartment.

It’s not a terribly large space to work with. There’s the pair of bedrooms along one side, and the narrow space of the bathroom connected to the hallway, and the living room joined to the tile of the kitchen with no more than the change in flooring to distinguish one from the other. But after that night with the movie flickering blues and greys over the flushed glow of pleasure at Takeda’s face Takeda seems to make it his fixed goal to fill every corner of their shared home with overheated memories, and Ukai has long since given up any pretense of resistance to the lure of Takeda’s dark lashes and flashing smile.

Takeda takes over his life. Ukai’s glad that his midterms are past and that finals are still some time off, because for the first week he loses track of all responsibilities and commitments beyond the next time he can press his hands to the curve of Takeda’s back and catch his mouth to the part of the other’s lips. The day after their doomed attempt at watching a movie Ukai comes home to find Takeda in the kitchen, halfway through cutting up vegetables for some kind of soup, he thinks, but dinner is entirely forgotten in favor of kissing against the corner of the space, with the hum of the refrigerator at Takeda’s shoulders like it’s taking on the utterly futile attempt at cooling their overheated enthusiasm. They spend one morning in the steam of the bathroom, with the foggy mirror throwing back Takeda’s heat-glazed gaze and the tiled walls chasing the groans in Ukai’s throat back over them as they find more heat than anything the water of the running shower can provide; another afternoon Ukai urges Takeda away from a book he’s reading on the couch to spread him out across the overlarge bed that caused Ukai such trouble when he moved in and strip him down to bare skin enough to occupy Ukai’s hands and lips and body until the sun has set into the dark of evening. Takeda distracts Ukai from studying at the kitchen table by dropping to his knees and working open the front of the other’s jeans with alarmingly dexterous fingers; Ukai doesn’t get much studying done that night, but by the time Takeda is done with him he can’t remember how to mind. And the living room, of course, atop the soft of the couch and against the resistance of the door and even over the coffee table, once, at the expense of Ukai’s knees but to Takeda’s vocal appreciation, until Ukai thinks sometimes the sound of the other’s pleasure must be echoing permanently off the walls of the house around them.

But best of all, Ukai thinks, better than languid exploration over his mattress or desperate satisfaction up against the kitchen counter, is when they’re in Takeda’s bed.

Takeda’s room is still a novelty to Ukai, still a space of unexplored unknowns even after the welcome to cross into it has been made explicit by word and action alike. It feels different than the rest of the house, warm and soft like it’s holding some secrets of Takeda’s existence, like it’s keeping the other back with jealous intent; there are times when coming through the doorway alone feels like an act of greater intimacy than anything Ukai could work from Takeda’s body. But Takeda leads him across the threshold without hesitating, backing into the room with his gaze fixed on Ukai and his smile glowing warm across the entirety of his face, and there is nothing that Ukai likes more than stepping into the implied intimacy of Takeda’s bedroom and unfolding it into the physicality that has become so intensely, satisfyingly regular in his life.

They’re on the bed, today. Weekends have become marathons of exertion, with the expanse of free time they offer, and Ukai has learned to cherish the comfort of a mattress rather than the resistance of a floor under his shins giving pressure that he doesn’t feel at the time but regrets for days after. Better to have the give of sheets, the dip of comfort under his bare knees and the brace of his hands: there’s no sense of haste, like this, no need to hurry on to their finish before physical discomfort dominates their attention. Ukai can strip Takeda free of the burden of his rumpled white shirts and his neatly knotted ties, can drop belt and slacks to the floor before working his fingers under the clinging hold of elastic waistbands around Takeda’s hips, until finally he can have Takeda as he is now, back arching against the support of the mattress beneath him with every thrust of Ukai’s hips, head tipping to the side on its own weight as his lips part on a groan, hand reaching up over his head to cling to the support of the headboard over him.

“Ittetsu,” Ukai says, his voice straining with the heat he’s been building with slow care along his spine for the last half hour. He sounds raw to his own ears, rough and rasping even over the lilt of the other’s name, but Takeda’s lashes flutter all the same, his lips come open to give voice to a groan at the back of his throat that spikes into a high whimper as Ukai’s hips rock forward to fit the heat of their bodies closer together. Ukai presses his lips together and swallows hard as he steadies his balance and finds a somewhat slower rhythm for his movement than what he’s been maintaining. “Satisfied yet?”

Ukai can see the refusal work in Takeda’s throat even before the other gives it voice as a hum that sounds plaintive and, Ukai has learned, carries all the force of a steel wall. “I want to try for one more.”

Ukai groans and gives up the movement of his hips for a moment so he can brace himself one-handed and lift his other to push the weight of his hair back from his forehead where some of the locks are falling loose of his headband. “One more,” he repeats with disbelieving weight. “Two orgasms in one morning not enough for you?”

“I made it to five the other day,” Takeda says with more energy that he ought to be able to muster, with the evidence of his latest release still hot across his stomach.

“Yeah,” Ukai growls with mock frustration. “Five in one _day_ , not one _session_.” He lets his hand fall from his hair to the bed again to bracket Takeda’s shoulders as he fixes the other with resigned frustration. “You’re killing me, professor.”

“It won’t take long,” Takeda says. He lifts his hand from the bracing hold he’s been maintaining on the headboard to touch at Ukai’s hair instead and stroke a wavy lock back into place under the line of elastic; his eyes are lightened all the way to gold by the heat in his cheeks and the sunlight spilling in at the window. “You don’t have to worry about me at all. Just do whatever you want.” His lashes dip, his lips catch onto a smile that speaks full volumes to the heat of his imagination. “I can take it.”

“I know you can,” Ukai grumbles. “It’s not _your_ stamina I’m worried about. You’ll just want more as soon as I give it to you this time, anyway.”

Takeda’s mouth softens, his lashes dip into enough concern to grant the expression sincerity even with his cheeks still hot and red with the desire trembling in the press of his thighs against Ukai’s hips. “Please,” he says, and lets his hand fall from Ukai’s hair to skim against the line of the other’s jaw. Ukai sets his frown the more firmly at his lips, nearly scowling in his determination to hold to his stated disillusionment, but it’s difficult to maintain with Takeda’s leg fitting against his and Takeda’s fingers wandering gentle heat across his skin. “Just one more, I promise I’ll be satisfied then.” His fingers draw in against the back of Ukai’s neck, his lips part on grace enough to make an invitation of their curve. “Keishin, please.”

Ukai huffs a breath that drags into a groan at the back of his throat. “You’re a menace,” he says definitively, but he’s lifting his hand from the sheets alongside Takeda’s shoulder all the same so he can reach down instead and brace his fingers close at the sweat-slick of the other’s thigh. Takeda’s breath rushes from him as Ukai hitches him closer, his lashes fluttering on the heat of Ukai shifting inside him with the action, but he’s quick to catch his leg around the other’s hip and brace himself even as Ukai centers his weight and leans in and down over Takeda on the bed before him. “You know _exactly_ how to get me to do what you want.”

“I don’t--” Takeda starts, and Ukai tightens his grip on the other’s hip and bucks forward with sudden force to sink himself into the heat of Takeda’s body as the best interruption to the half-formed protest at the other’s lips he can think of. Takeda’s thighs tighten, his head goes back, and in place of a denial he offers a groan instead, the sound of it deep and low enough that Ukai can feel the resonance of it way down in the heat-strain at the tension of his stomach.

“You do,” Ukai says, dropping the words into mock judgment, and he moves again to stave off any response before it can form. Takeda’s mouth opens onto the shape of a moan without the voice to give it breath; Ukai can feel himself responding to the heat in the other’s features without even thinking of it, his cock straining on want for the relief he has been coaxing and repressing for what feels like a lifetime. He slides his hand down farther to brace under the weight of Takeda’s hips and hold the other up towards Ukai’s movement, to make an angle of his thrusts instead of a straight-line glide, and Ukai’s rewarded as soon as he moves with fingers clutching at the back of his neck and Takeda’s head falling to the side against the pillows, as if too overcome by heat for him to even hold it up.

“You’re too good at this,” Ukai says, meaning to drag the words into a growl of put-upon frustration, to see if he can work free some of the dark-lashed pleasure his lower vocal ranges can sometimes pull from Takeda, but they come out as a gasp instead, too tense around the tide of heat building in him to be restrained into anything other than the arousal they are. Takeda is clinging to Ukai, now, both hands at the back of the other’s neck and one leg hooked over Ukai’s hip while the other foot slides desperate for traction against the sheets, but Ukai is moving at his own pace, now, his movements urged to speed by his own spiking arousal even more than the flush climbing from Takeda’s overheated shoulders to stain his cheeks and glow at his mouth. His heart is pounding in his chest, urging his breathing to a rasp and blurring the periphery of his vision into foggy heat, but Takeda is still clear, every detail of his features catching and holding Ukai’s attention even as his body strains towards the edge of his own long-awaited satisfaction. Ukai can see the details of Takeda’s lashes behind the weight of his glasses, can see the tremor of sensation quaking against the soft of the other’s lower lip; he can see the proof of the other’s preceding pleasure in the haze over his eyes and can track the rise of the indulgence he begged for in the strain of not-quite sound thrumming against the line of Takeda’s throat. Ukai’s own throat tenses, his chest flexes to spill a groan past his lips, and his shoulders are curving in and down, his body following the lure of Takeda’s parted lips and heavy eyes as iron fixing itself to a magnet.

“God,” Ukai hears himself groan, the sound far-off and foggy with the heat in his lungs, the humidity weighting the air into a burden as if to slow the desperate pace of his movement as he bucks into the grip of Takeda’s body beneath him. “Ittetsu.”

Takeda’s lashes flutter, his fingers slip up into Ukai’s hair as if he’s straining for a handhold against the other’s presence, as if the hand lifting his hips off the bed and the force of Ukai’s body pinning him down isn’t enough to steady him against the heat in the air. “Keishin,” he breathes, the sound strangely soft for the color in his cheeks, for the tension in those fingers curling into Ukai’s hair. “That feels--ah” as his head falls back against the support under him with the forward thrust of Ukai’s hips. Ukai can feel Takeda’s body tighten around the heat of his cock with reflexive force to match the tremor at his thighs. “Keishin, _yes_.”

Ukai huffs a laugh too breathless to take on the sound it deserves; it comes out as a hard exhale instead, strained at the back of his throat over the tension coiling up his spine and aching to a knot deep down in his stomach. “You’re going to beat me,” he gasps, a statement of fact instead of a question. Takeda’s lashes flutter but his focus is gone, melted away by the same force parting his lips on unvoiced want, and Ukai is left to gasp for another laugh as his fingers tighten on Takeda’s body against his. “I can’t believe you’re actually going to come again.”

Takeda shakes his head in hazy rejection. “It’s...not me,” he manages. “It’s because of you. Keishin, I can’t…” His voice gives way to a moan, his hips jerk up as if to answer Ukai’s speeding rhythm. “Oh, god, Keishin.” Takeda’s lashes lift, his gaze fixes on some point out in the distance over Ukai’s shoulder, and even the drumbeat demands of Ukai’s rising arousal are pushed out of immediate importance by the recognition of that look on Takeda’s face, that slackness that fits itself across his features like he’s relaxing into the wave coming for him.

“Keishin,” Takeda says, his voice breathless but perfectly clear all the same, like he’s reclaimed his coherency at this last verge of restraint. “I’m...I’m--” and Ukai can see his focus disintegrate, can watch the shape of words fall away into the helpless soft of parted lips as Takeda’s whole body spasms into heat under him. Takeda’s head goes back, his hands tighten, his foot slips wide against the sheets, and the reflexive strain of pleasure coursing through him seizes tight around Ukai’s length, rippling like a wave against the whole of his cock even as he keeps moving, carried forward by his own instinct into the pleasure that he has been building towards for the last long span. Ukai’s chest tightens, his thighs tense, and he lets his hold on Takeda’s body go to clutch at the sheets instead, to give himself some fragment more support as deliberate rhythm gives way to desperate, unthinking need.

“Fuck,” he blurts. Takeda’s gasping beneath him, quivering through the throes of his orgasm or maybe just with the aftershocks, Ukai doesn’t know; he can’t clear his thoughts, can’t steady his vision any more than he can ease his breathing. Takeda’s hand drops from his neck to come up and clutch at the headboard again and Ukai groans heat at the thought of it, of Takeda bracing himself steady against the force of Ukai’s movements. Ukai’s breathing is whining in his chest, framing itself like a plea with every motion, but he’s being carried forward on an impossible tide, too much for him to even think of holding back.

“Ittetsu,” he gasps. “I can’t, I’m going--” and the tension goes incandescent, sliding out of his grip and into something beyond his control. For a moment Ukai can feel it straining in him, pressure glowing like fire in every part of his body, and he gasps a lungful of air and can feel the heat of it pressing down against him like a weight.

“I’m going to come,” Ukai says, speaking to the ringing in his ears, to the haze at his vision; and his hips jolt forward, and his body suits actions to the promise of his words as his cock jerks and spills his release. Ukai can feel each wave of pressure run through the whole of his body, as if his orgasm is drawing free the strength from the backs of his thighs and the flex of his shoulders and that deep-down heat at the lowest point of his abdomen, like he’s offering up the very breath in his lungs to the ceaseless demand of Takeda’s body beneath him. It courses through him, wave after wave breaking into an endless moment of heat and satisfaction so bright it eclipses even his sense of himself for a long span of heartbeats; and then it breaks, and Ukai is left gasping and shaking and glowing heat at every point he and Takeda touch.

Takeda finds his voice first; only fair, Ukai thinks, given that he has a headstart on composing himself, but he still sounds inordinately collected for a man who has just been fucked into three orgasms in a row. “That was amazing,” he says, his voice as glowing-warm as the radiance of his skin. He lets the bed go to reach up and touch Ukai’s face; Ukai blinks hard to clear the haze from his vision and focus himself enough that he can see the smile on Takeda’s face and can parse the satisfied heat in the other’s gaze. “It felt like you were coming for minutes.”

“I might have been,” Ukai admits. “I kinda lost track of time there in the middle of it.” His arms are shaking, as he comes back into a place to take note of them; he ducks his head to frown as if to urge them to steadiness just via his expression. “I need to lie down.”

“Of course” and Takeda is moving at once, with more of that unfair recovery time as he drops his arm to his side so he can brace his elbow at the mattress and shift to make space for Ukai across the sheets alongside him. For Ukai’s part, it takes all his attention just to extricate himself from the heat of Takeda’s body with a bare minimum of grace; from there all he really bothers with is turning to fall heavily onto his back over the tangled sheets beneath them. His whole body feels radiant, like he’s shedding heat as rapidly as a sun, like he might glow if it were closer to the dim of night; as it is the sunlight spilling through the window just makes him feel heavy and lazy in the way of too much physical exertion first thing in the morning. He lifts an arm up over his face to shade his eyes and lets the rest of him fall slack across the sheets without thinking of the picture he must be making. At his side the mattress shifts, moving in time with Takeda’s change in position, and after a moment there’s a touch at Ukai’s hair, the weight of careful fingers winding in to stroke the strands away from the sweat-damp at his forehead. Ukai groans incoherence in the back of his throat and lets his arm slide up over his head, and Takeda’s touch moves to follow the line of the other’s headband holding the fall of his hair back from his face.

“This is a pleasant way to start the weekend,” Takeda observes, his voice steady but for a thrum of resonance deep down beneath it, as if the afterimage of his physical satisfaction is purring into harmony against the back of his throat.

“Can’t argue with that,” Ukai agrees without opening his eyes. His whole body is aching with effort, his muscles tingling with the relief that comes with the conclusion of strain; in combination with the bone-deep satisfaction of his orgasm, he thinks he wouldn’t mind staying right here for the rest of the day. “Not sure how productive I’m going to manage to be after this, but…”

Takeda hums a laugh. “You could start by joining me for a shower.”

Ukai snorts. “Uh huh,” he drawls. “I’m not that gullible. I know how that’ll turn out.”

“What?” Takeda’s voice is a perfect show of innocence; it’s enough to make Ukai open one eye to mock glare up at the other. “What do you mean?”

“It’s never just a shower with you,” Ukai tells him, and lifts a hand from the support of the bed to press a finger to the middle of Takeda’s chest. “You always act like you just want to have a quick rinse before going to class and next thing I know we’re naked and wet and I’m missing my bus.”

Takeda’s mouth twitches on a flicker of amusement before he bites his lip to fight it back. “We’re not precisely clothed at the moment either.”

Ukai waves his hand. “You’re satisfied for now,” he says, and lets his arm drop to the bed at his side, out over the supporting angle of Takeda’s elbow at the sheets. “Let me savor this rare reprieve before you use your wiles on me again.”

Takeda doesn’t manage to hold back his smile this time. “If that’s what you’d like.”

“It is,” Ukai says, and lifts his hand fractionally to gesture Takeda down towards him. “At least take a minute to lie still.” Takeda ducks forward with ready obedience to Ukai’s invitation; his head fits to Ukai’s shoulder, his arm lands across Ukai’s chest, and Ukai lets his hand fall to press against the flex of Takeda’s shoulder with a sigh of languid contentment.

There’s a moment of silence in the heated space around them, peace enough for Ukai to notice the rate of his heartbeat and to think about the soft of Takeda’s hair at his shoulder. Then Takeda takes a breath and shifts to look up without lifting his head from Ukai’s shoulder. “Am I really that persuasive?”

Ukai groans and pushes his hand up to ruffle through the sweat-damp of Takeda’s hair. “Hell yes you are,” he says. “I don’t think I stood a chance from the start.” He tips his chin to look down at Takeda against him; the other is looking up into Ukai’s face, his mouth curving on startled delight and his eyes alight in the illumination from the window. Ukai can only look at him for a moment, with the morning light flushing against his cheeks and the soft of happiness so ready at his lips, before he sighs resignation and turns over against the bed, keeping his hand where it is to brace Takeda still so he can press his mouth close against the other’s. Takeda’s hand comes up to Ukai’s neck at once, Takeda’s back arches to press in against Ukai before him, and Ukai shuts his eyes and lets Takeda talk him into spending another span of time kissing warmth against the give of the other’s mouth.

Ukai might not be spending as much time with his textbooks as he could be, but he thinks doing a comprehensive study of this very willing teacher is time well spent all the same.


	20. Familiar

“What about this one?”

Ukai doesn’t look up from what he’s doing at the kitchen counter. “Hang on,” he calls back instead, frowning attention at the teapot in front of him. “I’ll be over in a sec.”

“Ah, my apologies!” There’s a scuff of sound as Takeda moves from where he’s arranged at the far end of the couch. “Would you like some help?”

Ukai shakes his head. “I’ve got it,” he says just as the timer on the microwave beeps permission to take the tea infuser out of the pot. He does so with the very tips of his fingers, grimacing at the burn of heat that flares under his skin in the time it takes to lift the infuser free and drop it into the sink, but the pain eases as soon as he lets it go, minimal enough to not even need the rush of cool water to persuade it free. Ukai sets the lid back into place on the teapot and picks it up carefully, one hand at the handle and another bracing against the spout to steady the full weight of the ceramic as he turns to bring it back from the counter. Takeda is curled onto the end of the couch, one foot drawn up under him and his hair ruffled at the back of his neck where he’s been drawing idle fingers through the dark of it; he leans forward as Ukai approaches to reach and slide the pair of waiting teacups to the side to make space for Ukai to set the pot down against the table.

“Thanks,” Ukai says, and lands the teapot safely at the middle of the surface. Takeda reaches to test against the handle, drawing his hand back and shaking the heat from his skin before he tries again with somewhat more care. Ukai leaves him to it as he comes around the end of the coffee table to drop himself heavily to the couch alongside the other with a sigh. “What is it you wanted me to see?”

Takeda lifts his chin to gesture towards the laptop open at the far side of the table as he pours the tea into one of the pair of cups before them. “The posting is open in the browser. You can take a look.”

Ukai reaches out to pick up the laptop with one hand and draw it in towards himself; the other he reaches to press against the top of the teapot to urge it away from the dangerous proximity it was taking to the edge of the second cup Takeda is filling. Takeda ducks his head in gratitude and flickers a sheepish smile as he turns his attention back to what he’s doing; Ukai grins before he leans back against the couch to consider the suggestion Takeda wants him to look at.

“It looks nice from the outside,” he admits as he scrolls through the collection of photographs. “It’d be like living in a real house.”

“It would be,” Takeda agrees. “There’s even a backyard, of sorts.”

Ukai clicks through another pair of photographs and huffs a laugh. “Of sorts,” he agrees. “I think we might be able to fit a lawn chair back there. Maybe two, if they’re right next to each other.”

Takeda shrugs. “It is very small,” he admits. “We might be able to grow some fresh herbs. Or a few flowers, if nothing else.”

“It’s not like we have a dog that needs a bunch of space anyway,” Ukai agrees. He keeps working through the photos, framing out the interior of the rental house in question in his head as he goes. “We don’t really need two bedrooms anymore, do we?”

“We could make one a study,” Takeda suggests. “It would free up a little more space for desks and books if they were separate from the bed.”

“We could do that here too,” Ukai points out. “Although there’s not space for my mattress in your room right now.”

“We could move into your room instead.”

“I like the window in yours,” Ukai says, thinking of morning light against dark curls and the radiance of hazel eyes catching to gold with afternoon warmth. “What direction does the window in the master bedroom of the house face?”

“I’m not sure,” Takeda admits. “It looks like there might be a tree outside of it. Or maybe that’s the photograph of the second bedroom.”

“Hmm.” Ukai frowns at the screen before him as if to peer through the uncertainty of the photographs and force them into some greater clarity just with his attention.

Takeda leans back against the couch next to him and tips in to press his arm against Ukai’s. “We could always save some money and go with that studio apartment we were looking at over the weekend.”

“I guess so.” Ukai lifts his arm to free it from being pinned between his body and Takeda’s and brings it up to fit around the other’s shoulders instead. Takeda settles in against him at once, like his lean was only ever in expectation of the weight of Ukai’s arm around him; with what Ukai knows of Takeda, he wouldn’t be surprised to know this was the end goal all along. “Won’t it be cramped with everything in one room?”

Takeda shrugs under Ukai’s arm. “Maybe,” he says, but he doesn’t sound particularly concerned. “Though we spend most of our time together right now anyway, don’t we?”

“Yeah,” Ukai agrees before pulling his mouth into a put-upon frown as he looks down at Takeda next to him. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to get anything done at all with you and a bed in the same room all the time.”

Takeda doesn’t look half as abashed as he might; if anything his smile is going wider instead, dimpling against his cheeks and sparkling at his eyes as he tips his head to beam up at Ukai. “You get plenty done now, I think.”

“Sure I do,” Ukai snorts. “My boyfriend, mostly.” That makes Takeda laugh outright, the expression bright across his whole face without any trace of self-consciousness, and Ukai can’t help but grin back. “I don’t think moving is going to change that, do you?”

“Mm,” Takeda hums, and ducks his head to press himself close to Ukai’s shoulder. “I certainly hope not. If that’s a consequence of moving I’d rather stay right here where we are.”

Ukai tightens his hold around Takeda’s shoulders, offering agreement without any need to put words to it. They go quiet for a moment; Ukai leans back against the support of the couch, giving up his attention to the screen of the computer in front of him to consider the space around them instead.

“I’m gonna miss it here,” he says at last.

Takeda rocks in closer against him. “We don’t have to move,” he says. “This unit is still available, it would be easy to extend our lease and just stay here another year.”

“It doesn’t really make sense to have two separate bedrooms,” Ukai reminds him. “We spend all our time in yours or mine anyway.”

“It’ll be something of an undertaking to move everything to a different apartment, though,” Takeda points out reasonably. “Maybe it’s worth staying here for a while longer before we go to the trouble.”

Ukai hums, unconvinced. “Maybe.”

Takeda shifts against Ukai’s arm to lean forward over his knees; the movement is enough to draw Ukai’s attention away from the gaze he’s turning on the familiar space around them and down to the man beside him instead, but Takeda is just reaching out to curl his hands around one of the two cups of tea. He sits up carefully before offering it to Ukai, and Ukai smiles and pushes the laptop closed so he can set it safely aside before accepting the cup one-handed. Takeda lays claim to the other before settling himself back against the couch with careful grace; Ukai’s arm fits around his shoulders as he leans back to resume the comfortable slouch he had fallen into before.

“It’ll be fine in any case,” Takeda says with the perfectly calm tone that makes everything he says sound like unflinching certainty. “Whether we stay here or find somewhere else, I’m sure we’ll make ourselves at home no matter where we are.”

Ukai gazes down at the top of Takeda’s head, where the soft curls of the other’s hair are tangling across his forehead and winding themselves over the frame of the glasses set over his ears. For a long moment he’s silent, just looking without answering, until finally Takeda lifts his head to look up at him. “Keishin?”

His mouth is damp with the heat of the tea cradled in his hands, his eyes wide and bright with that complete focus that has changed not at all since the first day Ukai came through the door to the apartment that was nothing more than a space at the time and has become entirely home in the months since. Ukai’s mouth turns up at the corner, tension curving his lips into a lopsided grin that Takeda echoes back on instinct even before the other has taken a breath to heave a comfortable sigh.

“Yeah,” Ukai says, and he leans forward to press his mouth against the fall of Takeda’s hair over his forehead so his lips can pin the dark of the locks close against the other’s skin for a moment. He’s careful with the movement in consideration of the teacup cradled between them in Takeda’s hands, but Takeda’s lashes are still dipping to shadow when Ukai draws back, and his smile has gone soft and easy with comfort as he lifts his head to look up at Ukai next to him. “We’ll figure it out between us.”

Takeda’s smile widens to spread across his face and catch itself into the pleased flush at his cheeks. Ukai can only meet the soft bright of the other’s eyes for a moment, when Takeda is looking at him like that; then he has to turn away to set his cup down against the table and free his hand so he can reach and steady the lip of Takeda’s cup in his grip. Takeda’s gaze drops, his attention flickering to follow the motion of the other’s hand with confused intent, but when Ukai ducks in to press his mouth to the other’s Takeda’s lashes flutter into immediate surrender, his head turns up to meet Ukai’s, and his confusion gives way entirely to the warm weight of their mouths fitting together.

Ukai still can’t believe his luck in finding home on his first try.


End file.
